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Michael Watts
Not open to opportunities right now

Michael Watts — Tech Lead

Passionate about technology & leadership.
  • Laravel · PHP
  • Vue · Nuxt
  • AWS Cloud
  • AI
  • Engineering leadership
Read the journal Get in touch
Overview

About

Building the future, one line at a time.

I’m a passionate Lead Developer who thrives on solving complex problems with code. Whether it’s building intuitive UIs or working on scalable backend systems, I love being hands-on across the full stack. With extensive experience leading teams and delivering high-quality software solutions, I’m always open to new opportunities and collaborations.

  • Production-grade engineering

    Tests, observability, CI — the things that make features durable, not just done.

  • Team leadership

    Mentoring, code review, and the boring rituals that compound into a healthy codebase.

  • Cloud-native by default

    AWS-first architecture, infrastructure as code, sensible defaults you can actually maintain.

At a glance

10+Years building

Shipped projects
50+
Core specialisms
4
Based
York, UK — and remote
Availability
Not open to opportunities right now

GitHub activity

How I work

From the first sketch to a system you can ship.

  1. 01

    Discovery & design

    Understand the problem first. Map the system, find the constraints, then design the smallest thing that solves it.

  2. 02

    What you'll get

    • A roadmap you can actually ship
    • Clean, documented, tested code
    • CI/CD + monitoring on day one
    • Knowledge transfer, not lock-in
  3. 03

    Measure & iterate

    Ship, observe, learn. Healthy systems are the ones that get cheaper to change over time.

Get in touch

Tech stack

The tools I reach for, again and again.

  • 10+

    Laravel / PHP

    Backend APIs & enterprise applications

    Eloquent · Livewire · Filament · Pest

  • 6+

    Vue / Nuxt

    Modern frontend & full-stack apps

    TypeScript · Tailwind · Pinia · VueUse

  • 6+

    AWS

    Cloud infrastructure & deployment

    ECS · Lambda · RDS · Terraform

  • 5+

    DevOps

    CI/CD pipelines & containerisation

    Docker · GitHub Actions · k8s

  • TypeScript
  • PHP
  • Laravel
  • Vue
  • Nuxt
  • Tailwind
  • AWS
  • Docker
  • Terraform
  • GitHub Actions
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis

4 core technologies, plus a long tail of tools, languages, and platforms.

See full stackBrowse snippets

Journal

Notes from the work, without the marketing fluff.

View all entries
The State of AI: We Got Fast, We Forgot to Get Good

ai

The State of AI: We Got Fast, We Forgot to Get Good

AI made all of us faster this year. The quieter question is whether faster is the same as better, because in my experience lately, it very much isn't.

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best-practices

Code Reviews, Quality, and All the Ways We Screw It Up

Code quality isn’t about nitpicking style or chasing 100% test coverage—it’s about habits. Small PRs, constructive feedback, shared ownership, and learning from mistakes turn quality from a buzzword into a culture teams actually live by.

Read more

personal

My Everyday Carry: A Refined Blend of Function and Style

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been dialing in my Everyday Carry (EDC) setup, and I’ve finally landed on a gear combination that hits the sweet spot between functionality, durability, and style.

Read more

Contact

Have something worth building? Let's talk.

Two ways to start a conversation. Pick whichever's easier — both reach me directly.

Send a messageUse the contact formFind me on GitHub@WattsDeveloping