Rob Fiddaman
Founder Director at Manuka | The Databricks People
England, United Kingdom
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRob Fiddaman is a founder-director and talent strategist with nine years of hands-on software involvement and over two decades of global technology recruitment experience, building AI and data teams across Europe, the Americas and Asia. He combines operator-level insight—evidenced by full-stack and back-end contributions to the open-source Actual personal finance app and its GoCardless/bank integrations—with a boardroom perspective from advisory and investor roles across data, AI and recruitment startups. Currently leading TechYard Recruitment and partnering with venture firm Tquila, he helps scale product-led businesses by matching senior technical leaders to high-growth opportunities. Rob’s background in both engineering-adjacent projects and commercial talent strategy gives him a rare fluency in translating technical constraints into hiring and business outcomes. Notably, his code contributions emphasize pragmatic improvements—type-safety refactors and API-call optimizations—reflecting a focus on efficient, maintainable systems.
9 years of coding experience
4 years of employment as a software developer
BA Accounting and Business, BA Accounting and Business at University of SunderlandBEng Civil Engineering, BEng Civil Engineering at University of LiverpoolThingwall PrimaryRock Ferry High SchoolBirkenhead Sixth Form College
Github Skills (18)
javascript10
typescript10
typescript-types10
nodejs10
typescripts10
react10
apidoc9
finance9
databases9
front-end-development9
api9
data-integration9
sql-database9
sql8
back-end-development8
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
actualbudget/actual-server
Apr 2024 - Feb 2025
Actual's server
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:100 reviews, 91 PRs, 54 pushes in 10 months
Contributions summary:Rob primarily focused on back-end development tasks within the `actual-server` repository. Their contributions involved refactoring code to improve type safety and remove unnecessary blocks, implementing and refining GoCardless integration, including handling specific bank transaction formats and error conditions. They also addressed issues in SimpleFin integration and optimized the GoCardless bank sync to use fewer API calls, demonstrating a focus on enhancing the server's functionality and integrations. Furthermore, the user worked on bug fixes and feature enhancements.
dockerserver
actualbudget/actual
Apr 2024 - Jul 2026
A local-first personal finance app
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:1 release, 1125 reviews, 502 PRs in 2 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Rob contributed to the "actualbudget/actual" repository, a personal finance app, by implementing and refining features across the application. Their work included front-end modifications to the desktop client, such as incorporating cleared transaction checkboxes in the reconcile view and fixing dark mode contrast issues. They also made significant back-end changes by making app.js cwd agnostic, extending the config, and adding bank handlers. The contributions demonstrate a good understanding of the application's architecture and features.
financelaravellocal-firstpersonal-financebudgeting
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