Just working away

Hi! I'm Howard Watts

But feel free to call me Dean! I am a software developer based in New York and work with Chronograph Private Equity. I specialize in web applications and have built apps with React, Node.js, .NET, Rails, ColdFusion, and Perl in professional environments. When I'm not coding, I love to travel, eat good food, and play guitar.

Professional History

Chronograph Private Equity

Founding Team Member + Lead Software Developer

  • Innovated and delivered high quality features to attract elite private equity institutions. These features helped us stand out from the entrenched competition and brought us from $0 to over $19.4 trillion total AUM coverage
  • Introduced codebase, API, data security, and employee onboarding standards for a young company, growing the engineering team from a team of one to over 20 people
  • Produced tools to streamline internal processes, such as custom automation microservices and machine learning lambda functions. In one case decreased co-worker time spent on a task from 2.5 hours per document to only 1 minute
  • Sole creator and maintainer of the C# based xConnect Excel Plugin which securely handles data ingestion and digestion for clients via custom formulas
October 2017 - Present
ReactNodePythonLambdaRailsRubyMachine Learning

WordTree - A Daily Word Puzzle

Solo Creator

  • Solo developed and published a game, WordTree, in my free time over the first 4 months of 2023
  • Utilized React Native and Expo to build a unified experience across the web and phone
  • The game is now freely available on the web, the App Store, and Google Play marketplaces
April 2023 - Present
ReactReactNativeExpo

Structured Web

Lead Software Developer

  • Delivered features for high profile clients such as Intel and Amazon in .NET, C#, and ColdFusion.
  • Led an overhaul of our codebase to prepare for a security audit, making over 26,000 individual improvements across 2,134 files over a 2 month period in order to prevent XSS, CSRF, and SQL Injection attacks.
  • Expanded and led the software development team
August 2016 - October 2017
ColdFusionC#.NETClassic ASP

Moved to New York!

August 2016

EJournal Press

Software Development Intern

  • Refactored over 75 intricate Perl subsystems to a new, more configurable system.
  • Worked directly with clients on an intricate system with over 6,000 configuration flags.
  • Took part in the full software development life cycle process (design, code, test, maintain).
June 2015 - April 2016
PerlJQuerySQL

McDonogh School

Assistant Systems Administrator

  • Led project teams ranging from 2-5 people in establishing efficient software solutions.
  • Moved the entire Application and Admissions process at McDonogh School to an online and paperless system I constructed. System handles 800-1,000 applicants a year.
  • Developed online billing system for McDonogh School’s Business Office. Handles billing and transactions for 1,299 students and 177 faculty members.
  • Maintained full Administrative control over the Windows Server running the website and databases, and trusted with client’s private information as well as handling of their online transactions.
June 2012 - September 2014
ColdFusionJQuerySQL