Donovan Changfoot
Co-Founder at Fynbos
Western Cape, South Africa
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDonovan Changfoot is a Co-Founder and software engineer with seven years of experience building backend systems and startups from Western Cape, South Africa. He transitioned from a mechanical engineering background (MEng studies at University of Cape Town) into software, bringing a systems-oriented approach to process optimisation and reliable engineering. At Fynbos he leads product and technical decisions while previously shipping backend work at Coil and Sportraxs. As an open-source contributor he improved the Node.js client integration for the high-performance financial database TigerBeetle, focusing on maintainability and lifecycle correctness. Donovan combines hands-on C/Node.js backend experience with startup leadership, often drawing on mechanical engineering habits of measurement and iteration to harden software systems. He’s comfortable operating at the intersection of product, infrastructure, and developer ergonomics to deliver dependable, production-grade services.
7 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Mechanical Engineering at University of Cape TownMatric, Matric at Sacred Heart College, Observatory
Github Skills (10)
napi10
nodejs10
zig10
data-integration9
sql-database9
databases9
typescripts8
typescript8
typescript-types8
javascript7
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
tigerbeetle/tigerbeetle
Jul 2020 - Sep 2022
The financial transactions database designed for mission critical safety and performance.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:9 reviews, 103 commits, 14 PRs in 2 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Donovan primarily focused on refactoring and improving the Node.js client for the TigerBeetle database. They modified the `Globals` struct and related initialization/deinitialization logic within the Node.js environment. The user also updated type definitions and incorporated helper functions to improve code maintainability. These changes were aimed at enhancing the integration and usability of the TigerBeetle database within a Node.js environment.
financialaccountingcriticalfinancial-accountingmission-critical
appliedpayments/ISO-Open-API-Adaptor
Nov 2019 - Feb 2020
Contributions:23 PRs, 68 pushes, 17 branches in 2 months
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