I lead design at Paystack. We build economic infrastructure on the internet for African businesses.
It started as a contract in 2015 to rebuild the first version of Checkout, an app for accepting payments in the browser. The following year, I joined Shola and Ezra in San Francisco for Y Combinator.
I’ve worked as a frontend engineer, brand, web and product designer at Paystack. Occassionally, I've moonlighted as a product or engineering manager. Now I lead the 18-person design team.
Paystack is by far one of most important experiences of my life. The company values are a model for my personal life, the people are kind but critical, the work is meaningful and I'm constantly learning.
In early 2014, I joined Lanre Oyedotun at Chronos as a web designer.
Months later, he teamed up with Chuka Ofili and Ezra Olubi to build a logistics software company called Delivery Science.
At DS, we were encouraged to learn everything. Version control. Backend Development. Microservices. Monitoring. Everything.
We were often working on multiple projects at a time and there was always room to pick up something new. This was very formative for me, and I got a well-rounded education in software development.
Ezra and I left DS for Paystack at the end of 2015. Other friends - Seike Ibojo, Loknan Nanyaks and Shope Johnson - also joined later.
The company - which no longer runs - was later renamed to Field Insight.
Helloworld
In 2014, Timi Ajiboye and I started working together as Helloworld. We made digital products for clients and small experiments of our own.
Helloworld was also a collective. On larger projects, we enlisted friends like Onyekachi Mbaike, Lolu Bodunwa, Segun Famisa and Efe Money.
Timi now runs a handful of startups while I work at Paystack. We no longer take contracts, but we still build side projects together.
In 2013, I started a database of Nigerian designers called Curation. It didn’t go too far, but I connected with Akin Falomo as a result. Later, we founded Devcenter with Seun Awoyele and Kolawole Balogun.
At first the project was a website for sharing side projects, but slowly it evolved into a community. I worked on it for about two years, and made a lot of developer and designer friends during this period.
Under Akin’s direction, Devcenter is now a community of 18,000+ software developers, designers and technology professionals. They also offer a developer support service called Gigson.
I picked up graphic design as a hobby in 2009, my first year of uni. My friends referred me for a job, and for the next three years I made posters, pamphlets and other print items for student organisations.
I started learning web design during an internship in 2012 and subsequently interned for a few months with Chris Ogunlowo (Kwirkly) where I got exposed to advertising and copywriting.
Through Kwirkly, I got a consulting gig making websites for businesses with Mamuzo Emielu (Webxpress). This also lasted for a few months and I got much better at web design on the job.
Later in 2013, I also worked with Dika Oha (Cart NG). My role was to design and customise Wordpress themes for eCommerce. Here, I learnt a lot about CSS, PHP and product management.