2019 — A year in review
When I reflect on my Journey this year, it fills me with joy. This was not the case in the early days of this year. When this year started, I had faced rejections and imposter syndromes. Why is that?
A little tale of history
Prior to the start of this year, I re-applied to the best tech company in Africa — Andela. It has always been my dream to work with an agent of change and Andela promised this. They wanted to change the face of tech in Africa and I so wanted to be part of it.
I applied and after sailing through the first few screening processes, I made it into the last two weeks of intensive Bootcamp(described as one of the most rigorous tech Bootcamp in the world!).
The first two weeks of Andela’s Bootcamp was indeed stressful and after spending several sleepless nights trying to meet up with there acceptance criteria, I was rejected yet again. I taught that was the end of it. I had a laser focus to join Andela that I didn’t have plan B. So you can imagine how frustrated and challenging my early days of 2019 began.
I only had one hope — I knew I was exceptionally a creative person as this has been attested to by the different organizations I’ve been with and even Andela that rejected me. I resorted to looking for other opportunities in tech available for me.
A few days into January, Andela sent an email to me. They said that they were not ready to let me go just yet, they extended me another opportunity to join their company by solving yet another technical challenge to their taste. Honestly, I felt like refusing it, Dad had already asked me to move on. But when I remembered how much I’ve invested in joining the company already and my interest in its mission, I accepted there invite and took another 2–4weeks extensive and rigorous challenges.
After everything, It was successful and they extended me a full-time offer to join the company as a software engineer. Damn, I was excited beyond words!
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
— Michael Jordan
On March 3rd, 2019 I officially resumed. Since then, I’ve had lots of exciting and challenging moments. First was when I was given my brand new Macbook Pro, next was getting to meet and talk over lunch with my tech heroes, another was working alongside with the best talents in the industry and several others.
After the reggae play the blues
Weeks into joining Andela, I was placed in a team of seven engineers to build a full-stack web application under 8 weeks. With the help of our technical team lead, product manager and facilitator, we got started. During our onboarding session, we were forewarned of the issues we will encounter during the first weeks of starting the project, issues such as: working together in a team, communication, bonding, technical proficiencies, and the likes. Just a week into the project, all of this hit us like a storm. My team had some of the most talented and experienced members in the whole of our cohort and the disadvantage therein was that everybody felt their options were the best and no one was ready to work with each other. Our brain was reformatted when after the first sprint cycle, our facilitator graded us a zero for one of the major attributes we were been watched on. 😅
For context: every week, developers are usually graded in 6 attributes. the score range was from -2 to 2. You are expected to get an average of 2 across all 6 attributes within 4 weeks. If you fall short on this, you’ll be placed on a PIP- performance improvement plan a.k.a close to the gate of hell. If you don’t improve when under PIP which usually many don’t, you’ll be fired!.
Soon after we were given a zero in just the first week, we came together as a team to find a solution. Fast-forward 8 weeks after, we all completed the product and came out strong. I didn’t excel much during the back-end development but I shined when we started the front-end development(my area of expertise). In the 8 weeks, I learned so much than I have ever learned in my entire career, it was so intensive that I gave out my smartphone to reduce my distractions and got a regular phone that doesn't have internet connections.
Vital Lesson learned
- Communication is perhaps the most important quality in a team.
- The team first, rather than me first.
- Creating a realistic timeframe is key to managing stakeholders effectively and meeting deadlines.
- Keys to growth — learn, unlearn, relearn
- If you’re more proficient in an area, be sure to assist others too.
The next Journey
Next, I applied to join a remote team to build a very massive in-house product that was to replace a service, the company paid for. I applied to the team as a front-end engineer and I was accepted. At the time, we were just 4 front-end engineers and shortly after, two engineers transition into higher roles leaving me and a colleague from Nigeria. I worked with engineers across 5 different countries to build out this product. It was intensive too, but few days into the codebase, I got the hang of it and had already started delivering features. I worked with the team for 3 months and during this time, I acted as a team lead, volunteered as a product researcher, mentored new engineers joining the product, assisted in redesigning the UI/UX and most times, collaborating with backend engineers to understand how to translate their code logic in the front-end. After that, I transition into the next higher role(D1 engineer as it was called). 😤
By this time, I was ready to be placed to work with one of Andela’s international partners in the USA. Meanwhile, I had already applied for the Kedar program(a program for experienced engineers to mentor new developers and also act as product managers in some products). During this time when I thought I was up to something great at Andela, something huge hit me.
How my companies restructuring changes everything!
On September 17, 2019, Jeremy Johnson co-founder of Andela, came to Lagos, Nigeria from the USA, to deliver shattering news to every Andela across its different locations in the world. At 10:00 A.M, every Andelan joined a meeting via zoom to hear what is about to go down. We were all expecting that the company was about to increase the compensation rate! Only for Jeremy to announce that after several deliberations among the management, they were going to make 420 engineers roles redundant(that's just an easy way of saying: You’re fired!) why? there was a major shift in demand and in other to meet up with that demand, they needed to reduce the number of junior engineers and employ more senior engineers with about 5–7 years of experience. More details here and here.
This news came unexpected and devastating. Shortly after the announcement, I received an email saying I was affected by the restructuring too and my termination will be effective from the 20th of September, 2019. For a few moments, I could not comprehend what had just happened. Here’s me that had already scheduled a one-on-one session with another engineer after the call, only to find out that both I and the engineer were terminated 😄. I couldn’t laugh nor cry, for my mind kept believing it was all a dream. Some engineers who had left prestigious organization with compensations many times over what Andela paid them were affected too, some were crying. The company made it clear that it was not due to our technical proficiencies, it was due to a shift in demand and the company’s restructuring. I am not sure how that helped but I was not happy. I learned a great deal from that experience:
Never lay your eggs in one basket- Always have a backup plan
Your employer isn’t always your friend. Never forget to look out for yourself.
In November, I decided I was going to continue my career as an engineering consultant and was only going to accept an offer from a foreign company or simply continue helping local startups and business owners architect software solutions. Since then, I’ve gotten many Job offers mostly from Nigeria and currently at the time of writing this, I am architecting a software solution for a leading fashion brand in Nigeria.
Adventures and Events
I also got to visit several fun centers in Lagos, Nigeria with my friends and colleagues. I spent more time with nature, catching up with friends in a relaxed setting and seeing a movie every Friday night, either alone or with a close friend/relation.
I also met several incredible people in the tech ecosystem. More of them I met during the ConcatenateConference 2019. I had interactions with brilliant minds and learned a whole lot from them. Am glad I attended the conference.
I didn’t travel much this year, but one that is worthy of mentioning was my travel to Owerri Nigeria, for Orjiewuru Kingdom’s wedding. Apart from the awesome sights at Owerri, the wedding was a blast, I loved it. Congrats again bro. After the wedding, I traveled to Enugu Nigeria where I got to spend time with relations and also met some awesome individuals in the community too.
In all am grateful to the Giver of Life — Jehovah and to Andela for the Opportunity I was given, I am not sure I’d have gotten more exposure anywhere else.
What’s in for 2020?
If there’s one thing I can say for sure, 2020 is going to be an awesome year for me. Am not going to say much but I plan to:
- Speak more in tech events
- Become more active in the community
- Join another awesome team(Foreign or Locally)
- Read nothing less than 12 books
- Travel more
- Most importantly, learn and grow more.
I am grateful to everyone who has helped/inspired me one way or the other, people like Orjiewuru Kingdom, Micah Akpan, Olajide Ayinla, Anayo Oleru, Kelechi, Iheanyichukwu Paradise, Ibrahim Olamilekan, Omowale David-Ashiru, Seni Sulyman, Shodipo Ayomide, Nelson Nnaji several others including you, for taking the time out to read this piece. 🙏
I am very thankful for the opportunities 2019 brought, I am looking forward to an Amazing 2020.
I am a passionate front-end & UI/UX engineer, exciting speaker, skilled writer, web creativist, excellent trainer, and a fervent Developer Advocate. Send me an email if you want me to speak at your developer/tech conference, organize workshops or consult for your startup/company.
You can visit my website to know more about me or you can follow me on Twitter, or find me on GitHub. Here’s to greater heights to attain! 🎊 🎉
