Gutierrez attended the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he received his BFA & MFA in Experimental Animation under Jules Engel. There he created the 3D short Carmelo, which won the 2001 Student Emmy Award in animation and was screened at various festivals around the world, including Kodak’s Emerging Filmmakers Program at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. In 2000, Gutierrez worked under animation legend Maurice Noble, for the art direction of Chuck Jones’ Timberwolf for Warner Bros. In 2001, he began creating Jorge Gutierrez’ El Macho, an animated web series for Sony Pictures.

In 2012, Gutierrez directed at Reel FX a computer-animated adventure feature film with a Romeo and Juliet style love story set against a Mexican “Day of the Dead” backdrop. The film, with the official title The Book of Life, was co-produced with 20th Century Fox Animation and was released on October 17, 2014. He earned his first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Animated Feature Film in 2014, only to lose the award to How to Train Your Dragon 2.

In February 2015, Reel FX and Gutierrez announced a multi-year, multi-picture deal.

In August 2, 2017, it was reported that Gutierrez would write and direct The Billion Brick Race, a spin-off of The Lego Movie, for Warner Animation Group. However, on February 8, 2018, it was reported that Gutierrez had left the project. More recently, he signed a deal with Netflix.