Jonathan Quinn
Aardman
Jonathan is currently the Technical Director of Aardman's recently founded internal games studio, building PC, console, and mobile titles, as well as guiding various internal R&D projects. He has shipped titles across many gaming platforms in several companies, in senior, lead, head of department, and TD roles—managing large engineering teams. He helped found a robotics gaming start-up that raised over $12m, scaled from 4 to 70 people, and sold robots in Apple stores around the world. Jonathan's educational background includes a BSc, PhD, post-docs, and an Associate Lecturer role at Cardiff University. He has received a leadership award from the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a scholarship for the Oxford High Performance Leadership Programme. He is an industry speaker and mentor, a contributor to national STEM projects, and an advisor to the Royal Academy of Engineering on education in UK engineering.
Jonathan Quinn is speaking at the following session/s
Tech Leadership in Games
Join Develop’s roundtable discussion on the oft-overlooked topic of technical leadership in the video game industry. Whilst public post-mortems, retrospectives, and interviews tend to focus on studio founders, and creative and game leads, strong technical leadership is a crucial aspect of building a successful game.
Unfortunately, finding reliable resources and guidance on technical leadership can be problematic. Engineering blogs and social media prioritise exciting technical solutions, or zeitgeist debate, leaving leadership strategies and support in the shadows. This can lead to a knowledge gap for incumbent and aspiring technical leaders, who often have to rely on personal networks or an extrapolation of a discussion from another field.
This siloing of knowledge can lead to stagnation and limit growth opportunities for individuals and the industry. Good leadership is hard, so why not give it the same attention and effort that you might give to a technical challenge? This roundtable aims to bridge the knowledge gap by providing an open forum for technical leaders to share their experiences, strategies, and insights. Through this discussion, attendees will improve their leadership practices, and make meaningful connections to advance their careers and the industry as a whole. Learn from your peers and become better (absolutely no guarantees).
Session Takeaway
- Practical improvements to your leadership skills, covering topics critical to you, in areas such as: team and studio leadership, strategy, process and direction, engineering and delivery, and personal development
- An awareness of best practice, and a refresher on what you should be doing as a leader
- Make new connections
- Fun debate, and hopefully some new motivation
Session speakers
