Star developer series: Azeez Taiwo
By: Bashir Hamza
Tags: Stories, Developer, Android, Software Development

Consonance as a community of tech enthusiasts has an arm of it that makes sure members are fully motivated and encouraged with the stories of others. This is also known as the star developers series which is anchored by Hamza Bashir and Tinuade Adeleke. we have had 8 star developers that have given general talks on how they all started their journeys into software and technology development. They told us how they started, obstacles they faced, how they got to improve themselves and how awesome the journey has been for them. We will be compiling these stories as articles and rolling them out for those that have missed them, those that are just joining us as fresh members of consonance and the world at large.

Our first star developer ever in the series was the awesome Taiwo Azeez. He shared his story with us on September 23rd 2017. He is a graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University and a Software engineer with Interswitch group. He is a proficient Java and android developer and has had some apps on the Google play store.

This is his story as said on slack.

Hello people. Its nice being here and i would say its a rare privilege to be at the spotlight for this Saturday’s edition of the Star Developer program. My name is Azeez Taiwo, I graduated earlier this year from OAU, studied Computer Engineering. My software development career has been really exciting. When i resumed in OAU in 2012, i literally had no prior programming experience, all that was on my mind back then was to get a First Class, get a scholarship to go study abroad and get a job afterwards. This used to be the default thinking… But somehow, i was introduced to Java by a Friend. This happened during ASUU strike that lasted about 5 months. I traveled from my place to Abeokuta (where my friend stays) , a journey of about 63 km. He (my friend) was already doing Web development at that time, he so much knew the nuances of software development and after prolonged chat with him, i got a copy of Java programming by Deitel. That book was just too bulky and verbose( much like the programming language itself). He helped me to setup the development environment (JDK and JRE).

I read the book religiously and practiced a lot of exercises from the book. I got bored with just reading and wanted to create something with what i have learnt . After i told him of my predicament, he offered to help me speak with a friend of his at the startup where he works.. I met his friend, who knew Java and has done a lot of desktop apps with it. He requested a token sum of 20, 000 Naira from me. I told my Dad about it and convinced him to give me money, which he did. Thereafter, i relocated to the startup at Abeokuta, where i started learning building apps using Java SE, Netbeans and MySQL database. I felt really happy the day i built an app that registers and logs in a user, we all have that moment. So i would say that ASUU strike really paved way for me in my software development career ASUU strike ended and i was back on campus with the hustle and bustle of academics. It became quite difficult to balance academics and software development. I almost abandoned software Dev for full time academics. I later regained balance and in 2014, i met @saopayne. If i could remember vividly, i saw him with an IQube jersey on a particular day and asked about IQube and what it was all about. He told me all about iQube ( a software development company ) and i became interested. He sent an email to the HR, did some interview, and was accepted. At iQube, i got to work on software projects, and did some research as well. All this happened while the school was on session. I also led some team for school’s course projects, built a chat app using Java sockets and all. I was also very active as a GDG OAU member and i published my first app on play store in 2014. Sao Ademola also introduced me to IEEE Xtreme, which is a programming competition for schools across the world, I was able to participate in three editions. That really helped me develop my algorithm skills. Later in my 400 level, I interned at iQube labs for my Industrial Training and it really gave me the opportunity to work on real world projects. I think Jim Rohn was right when he said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. To cut the long story short, i would say so far what has really helped has been the curiosity to know a technology works, being with the right people and willingness to learn new things. Trust me, learning is fun only when you get to be creative about it, only when you get to set your own terms , dictate your own rules and explore without been forced to go through a check box of learning outcomes.

END.

And these are the messages shared with us by Azeez Taiwo.

If you still have any questions, you can chat him up on slack or Taiwo Azeez on twitter. Trust me, he is one of the coolest guys to talk with.

Thank you.

Hamza Bashir and Tinuade Adeleke for Consonance Africa.