Jonathan Leaders

Jonathan Leaders

CTO/Founder of Leaders & Company

Supervisor CTO/Software Architect / 17 yrs

Los Angeles, CA

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Technical Director

Home (2015)

Technical Director

The Croods (2013)

Render & Light Engineer / Research & Development

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)

Lighting Technical Director

Puss in Boots (2011)

Lighting Technical Director

Megamind (2010)

Jonathan Leaders is an experienced technologist based out of Los Angeles, California. He is currently an independant consultant, programmer, and life coach. He was previously employed as a Global Technical Director at DreamWorks Animation SKG.

He served as a Research and Development Engineer for the blockbuster film Madagascar 3: Europes Most Wanted and up-and-coming film Turbo (2013). He worked as a Technical Director for Annie-nominated Megamind, the Oscar-nominated film, Puss in Boots, and the recent film The Croods (2013).

Jonathan started programming at the age of 9 in BASIC, and now knows over fifteen programming languages. At the age of 14 he started a business selling video games he had made from scratch, and went on to complete graduate school by the age of 20. He continued his passion for building games as a senior programmer on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade game Roogoo, as well as the retail Nintendo Wii game Roogoo: Twisted Towers.

In high school, he built high security database applications with a team at a leading global linguistics research organization.

More at jonathanleaders.com
Work History

  • Lead Graphics Programmer

    Deviation Games

    January 2020 - Present
    Santa Monica, CA

  • CTO

    Leaders & Company

    June 2014 - Present

  • Technical Director

    DreamWorks Animation

    March 2010 - June 2015

    Extend, support, and develop new technology for world-class 3D films.

  • Owner / Engineer

    JLSoftware (Self-employed)

    June 2009 - April 2015

    Web development,business apps in SQL/PHP/CSS/XHTML/C++/C#/VB/Java/JavaScript/XSLT. games for iPhone, PC, Mac, Xbox, Nintendo,

  • Owner / Photographer

    JLPhotography

    March 2005 - March 2015

    Photography, imaging, editing, and printing for events, camps, fashion / runway shows, portraiture/glamour, portfolio, business, inventory, and family photos.

  • Research & Development Engineer

    DreamWorks Animation

    September 2011 - April 2012

    Developing next-generation of film technology

  • Senior Software Engineer

    SpiderMonk Entertainment

    September 2006 - June 2009

    PC, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, engine development, game play programming, tools development, pipeline optimization, design collaboration, used Unreal, Infernal, + in house engine

  • Web Developer

    Wycliffe Bible Translators

    2004 - 2004

    Built internationally used research database & design templates that are being used and re-used to this day

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Education

  • The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University

    2005 - 2006