About Daniel Watrous

I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, and now live in Boise ID. I have always been interested in technology and home personal computing. Early on I realized that technology would change the landscape of business and especially marketing, so that became my focus.

As the years passed, I grew more and more interested in the highly technical projects which enabled businesses to be more personal and dynamic with their customers. In particular, I have focused on the ability of software and websites to cater to each user in a way that will increase engagement and conversions.

In April of 2000 I shifted my efforts to internet technologies and spent a few years building cutting edge websites and intranets for advertising agencies. The first website that I worked on was www.intel.com, which I eventually took over as lead developer. I’ve built websites for companies in health care, technology, banking and a whole bunch in between.

In January of 2002 I decided to deepen my understanding of the fundamental technology I used and so I began to study electrical engineering at the University of Utah. While at the university I specialized in semiconductor device physics (that’s the stuff that happens at the atomic level of every computer) with an emphasis in optoelectronics (how semiconductors absorb and emit light).

During college I had a software company with a handful of employees. We primarily built software for a select list of clients local to Salt Lake City (with some out of state ad agencies making it on the list). I closed my business in May, 2005 to dedicate myself to research during my last year at the university. My thesis had to do with building a theoretical semiconductor device known as a SpinFET in a clean room environment to enable superconductive computing at high speeds.

After college I went to work as an electrical/software engineer with Aptina Imaging LLC (originally Micron Imaging), one of the world’s leading companies for digital imagers (a near perfect combination of the semiconductor device physics and the optoelectronics I studied in college). During my three years with Aptina, I developed a wide range of software that improved the manufacturing process.

In October, 2009 I returned to internet marketing with a specific focus on selling direct to consumer. The result was a small scale international software company. I now have a half a dozen software products and I employ people in the Philippines and Pakistan (and infrequently in India).

As of February, 2012, I also work days for Hewlett Packard in a senior software role. In my current capacity I design and develop the technology that powers https://support.hp.com, which receives millions of daily page views. Large scale and high concurrency are the name of the game.

Software Engineering

If you’re interested in having a look at the more technical side of what I do, head over to my Software Engineering site. On that site I get much more technical than I do here. You could say that I pull back the curtain and let you peek inside at how I develop software.

Masters of Business Administration (MBA)

If you’re into sophisticated business management, including Finance, Law, Operations, Marketing, Logistics, etc., then you might like to visit my MBA website. This includes many details of my course reviews, course projects and presentations.