Jonathan Dance is the Co-founder and CTO of Hydra, where he has worked since 2022. He has a diverse background in engineering management and technical support, with previous roles at Heroku and Salesforce.
Current Role at Hydra
Jonathan Dance serves as the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Hydra, a company that is part of the Y Combinator Winter 2022 batch. Since joining in 2022, he has played a pivotal role in leading the engineering team. Under his leadership, the team successfully secured a $3.1 million seed round, demonstrating his capability in both technical and business aspects of the startup.
Previous Experience at Heroku
Jonathan Dance has extensive experience at Heroku, where he held multiple roles from 2011 to 2015. He began as a Platform Support Engineer, then transitioned to Senior Software Engineer, and later served as Senior Manager of Technical Support Engineering. His tenure at Heroku spanned four years, during which he developed a deep understanding of technical support and engineering management.
Professional Background and Skills
Jonathan Dance possesses a unique cross-functional background that encompasses engineering management, project management, client management, and business operations. His expertise includes software design, database design, and server architecture. He has significant experience as a Ruby on Rails engineer and has worked in startup environments, where a diverse skill set is essential.
Educational Background in Computer Science
Jonathan Dance earned a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His studies spanned from 2000 to 2004, providing him with a solid foundation in computer science principles and practices, which he has applied throughout his career in various technical roles.
Experience at Agora Games and Crunchy Data
Before his current role, Jonathan co-founded Agora Games, where he served as CTO from 2003 to 2008 in the Albany, New York area. He also worked briefly as an Engineering Manager at Crunchy Data in 2021. These experiences contributed to his leadership skills and technical expertise in the software development field.