Rutledge has held college lectureships at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 2000 to 2001 and Somerville College, Oxford, from 2001 to 2002. In 2003, he moved to become a lecturer at the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology at University College Dublin. In 2006, he relocated to the University of Sydney and was an associate professor during the years 2014 to 2019. In 2019, he was promoted to a full professor of chemistry. At the University of Sydney, Rutledge regularly collaborated with the group of Matthew H. Todd until his departure to University College London in 2018.