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Software Developers Journey Podcast

#85 Shedrack Akintayo a remote-native developer

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Shedrack Akintayo 0:00
When I want to use a framework, maybe react Vue js, or maybe backbone or something, I actually go to the GitHub web boots. See the way it's structured and with views, I think it that way that's helped me learn more about the fundamentals of teams data. I know how these things work on the ground, and I can always fix my book myself.

Tim Bourguignon 0:31
Hello, and welcome to DevJourney, the podcast shining a light on developers lives from all over the world. My name is Tim Bourguignon, and today, I received Shrack Akintayo. Shedrack is a software developer from Nigeria. He's a strong lover of community building and a huge fan of open source software development. He leads the React JS clan of the Facebook developers circles, Legos, Nigeria, and when does not In front of his computer, he spends the rest of his free time playing soccer and listening to music. Shedrack, welcome to dev journey,

Shedrack Akintayo 1:07
I think Thank you for having me. Hello, everybody.

Tim Bourguignon 1:09
So let's get right in there. How do you first step into it look like? Okay, so

Shedrack Akintayo 1:15
I think it was when I was in high school. Yeah, I think my last days in high school. So I had this free this free time, I think about two months holiday before resuming school. And I was like, I really didn't have anything to do. I was just watching movies and the big anime fan so I was watching anime ins and I think I was browsing to the internet. They found it particularly difficult on software development, and hacking. I was really really interested in hacking as best I I think hacking was a breakthrough for me into the IT world because I was watching movies, and they will always hacking stuff and I'm like, Oh, I need to learn how to hack. So I was browsing through this internet and I was like searching for articles on hacking videos and stores now actually, as an actually goes into it itself to one of the links or know that I found Python. So better. Like I said it was the programming language, you know that, like this looks interesting. So I think that was, I think 2015 Yeah. 2015 2016 ish. I don't know, interesting 2016 I found it. And I actually lent a couple of things in Python. Not really any really ticket serious because at after the trip, a month break, I went back to school, so there was really no time to actually do these things. And I think then I got into college. That's like, after I stopped doing the whole programming and hacking thing for about a year. So I think I got to the college in 2016. Yeah, I found out about programming in 2015. Going to college on June 16. Then I met somebody I met, I met a friend, I think is a friend as a very good friend of mine now, but then we're just acquaintances. And he told me that I'm I'm an engineering student, I study engineering course. So he told me that for you to be an engineer, you need to at least know certain programming languages. So like, I came across this particular thing some time in my life, and he began to show me things Diane has actually done. If he was a front end engineer, he has issued meetings. His name is Sheldon is the Nigerian by the way. Um, he showed me teams that occasion I was like, excited. I was like, Wow, so I could actually do something like this. So I have this tendency of trying to prove myself. So I think I took a very, very, I think I took about a year to Lin to gramming itself, I say with Python. Then after a while I chopped bye for now into JavaScript, and HTML CSS, so so far has been actually very, very wonderful, john.

Tim Bourguignon 3:49
So let's unpack this a little bit. What interested you in hacking in the first place?

Shedrack Akintayo 3:54
I don't know. I just I think if the ability to break into stuff, just like Not do the ordinary, you just go into the internals of things like I am very big fan of going into the Internet of Things, everything on that would I want to do. I'm a very curious person, I want to know every single thing. It could be. It could be just a flower face, I could see if I can be like, I want to know the material used to get as loud as I want. I'm very, very curious person. I think that's what interested me in hacking. And of course, the ability to fly right in front of CCTV cameras, and all this crazy, crazy things that were going on in movies. I really just wanted to do that.

Tim Bourguignon 4:36
Do you see this behavior in you still so getting to the internals of thing and trying to understand everything in details?

Shedrack Akintayo 4:43
Yeah, it does affect I mean, I would say in a positive way, a positive way, even up to now because when I study when I want to use if I'm a front end engineer currently, when I want to use a framework, movie, React Vue js, or maybe backbone or something actually go to the GitHub web boots surely see the way it's structured and with views, I think, without way that helped me learn more about the fundamentals of teams data. And I think, personally, when I was learning JavaScript, my curiosity of knowing it, I think there's this book if you don't know Jesus by calcium Sim, I think I read the entire series of that, because I'm also curious to know what exactly is making tell us what it is. Many people actually don't read the book to the end, I read every single series, I think it's about five books, very, very long books I read every single day because I was curious and so far that's been helping me very, very well because I know how these things work on the ground. And I when I can always fix my bog myself.

Tim Bourguignon 5:46
How do you balance the Getting Things Done with house knowledge, the things that are not completely fully stabilized yet, and this envy of learning more and getting to the fundamental And the court things.

Shedrack Akintayo 6:01
I think personally, for me, it's just having a very race, like balanced life. I'm very, very balanced. Basically, I have this way of delegating time for every single thing. So there's no like, I'm encroaching on this particular kind of mine. I have time for music. I have time for soccer, after movies after I'm friends, and of course after time for work, and also have time for learning. So I think personally, for me, it's about delegating time correctly for every single thing. Okay, so so you so you have your time where you do stuff focusing on the on the it part. Yeah, exactly.

Tim Bourguignon 6:34
You have time where you where you code where you explore or do things, and then put time aside to get to the bottom of things and the theory and stuff.

Shedrack Akintayo 6:42
Yes, exactly. Exactly. Okay.

Tim Bourguignon 6:45
Can you give us an rough idea of how much is each of these? Each of these takes takes you in a week? Okay? So, um,

Shedrack Akintayo 6:53
I'll say, okay, for writing code. I spend about, I think eight hours a day I don't write down words. I spent hours I made sure I get everything I need to get done within eight hours every single day, then lending lending takes about two, three hours of my tea. Then I think exploring just doing random repos on GitHub on I think I spend about one or two minutes doing this thing. So I'll see mostly about, let's see 50 song, an extra 60 hours a week, learning writing code

Tim Bourguignon 7:26
and exploring and that's, that's including your work, right?

Shedrack Akintayo 7:30
Yes. Yes. Yes. Nice. Nice. Nice.

Tim Bourguignon 7:32
Okay, so let's let's go back to the first part, and continue unpacking it. You said you you started learning Python?

Shedrack Akintayo 7:39
Yes. Yeah. Why? Why Python. I found the articles I read online. The people like the writers, the authors were saying, Python was the easiest thing to getting you to game easiest language to learn why getting into programming, and it builds your foundation makes you know about things that are already on lease costs, basic patterns. And I think that it really helped me. It really helped me going forward in my career

Tim Bourguignon 8:05
now that you have a bit more experience with different languages, would you do it differently? Would you still start with pike? No. Would you just not differently?

Shedrack Akintayo 8:12
I think I would no see, I would start with Python, I would not allow any particular language. I just feel like anything. I have interesting and neat language I have interesting, because currently, I'm actually living with a very, very cool and fun by Google. It's very, very interesting language. And the thing is, the thing is this, you actually should just know the basics of every of every single thing. The basics is very, very important fundamentals very, very important. So learning these things are actually very, very important to me. I would say I would always go for whatever I feel like going to put I should just know the basics. And how

Tim Bourguignon 8:49
would you encourage people to learn the basics?

Shedrack Akintayo 8:52
I would say of course, reading books, I think most people are visual learners. Most people actually visually like to watch video. We're going to see how I would say you should do things yourself don't just watch videos there so if you are watching it to me I written a book, it's best if you actually type in the code yourself, not just copying and pasting it or just looking at what the instructor or the auto tutor is doing. You should actually put in work by yourself even actually copying the writing exactly what the instructor is doing, you should actually do it yourself. And also you should twist things for yourself. So if you're learning on so in JavaScript, if you are learning how to multiply stuff m items in an array MC the instructor told you how to multiply acting in an array. Use for yourself you should probably on your free time should learn in learn how to subtract those up to add stuff by yourself in an array.

Tim Bourguignon 9:52
Yeah, sure. There's a decent First there's the this euphoria of seeing the code that someone wrote, working on yourself. I think it's always a always a kind of emotional rush and say, well, it's working. Well, yeah. And then you're very right. trying things in a different way saying, okay, I understood that it can be done this way. But how about this corner case? And how about if I twist this what happens there? This is the kind of curiosity that gets you out of the corner as you build yourself in. That's exactly, exactly. I love that. Okay, okay. Um, you said you, you went to college, to study engineering, but it was not coding right away. What What were you after back then?

Shedrack Akintayo 10:37
Um, I honestly going into college, I really did not know what I wanted to do. So thing is, I wanted to study computer science going to the college computer science, not just not engineering itself. I wanted to study computer science, but I my parents had display for engineering and the many who for engineering instead of Mechatronics Engineering, instead of going Welcome testing, so I was just being there to just really fulfill. Yeah, I wish I would say yeah, I feel that way. Because I was really interested in whatever I do at college at that time.

Tim Bourguignon 11:11
How did that discussion with your parents go then? When you decided to switch from engineering to to computer science?

Shedrack Akintayo 11:17
It's what I think I didn't really tell them. By the way, I didn't enter it. We I just did it. I don't think we had that. We didn't really have a discussion. You just saw me doing it. We didn't have any discussion. But if we're going to have a discussion, it would definitely go against it or see something that would probably make me change my mind. So I just went straight up for you without telling them anything.

Tim Bourguignon 11:41
But if it went all right afterwards, right?

Shedrack Akintayo 11:44
Yes, yes.

Tim Bourguignon 11:46
Cool. Cool. You You talked about the friend that that got you a bit more into programming. Yes. How did he get you more interested and provide you with enough interesting knowledge that queue up in there.

Shedrack Akintayo 12:00
When I met him, he she had already done projects that he had some sensing from this they are working on. So he was sharing his projects and like, you know, he can actually do this too. So it only he just developed this particular interest in me that even Till now I don't understand why they would do that interest in me. So he was like, Okay, I'm going to show you some pedsql particular tutorial videos that you can use to watch I am you can watch and learn how to do these things. You also do community building in your community, bringing me to events, taking me to events, he took me to my first meetup took me my first meetup. I cannot forget it. First meetup. It was really, really interesting because I could see everybody everybody had particular and zeal and passion for programming. And it was really, really exciting because everybody had this when sync we showed in sync, even though I was fairly new to this thing, but I was really really excited. It showed me showed me It showed introduced me to people that will help me going forward in my career. He introduced me to some couple of commits before Like, the top guys like cheap talk people there at that time, so it was just he really helped me

Tim Bourguignon 13:07
going forward. That sounds like an awesome mentor.

Shedrack Akintayo 13:10
Yeah, I would, I would call him a mentor. boy he doesn't like me like telling me

Tim Bourguignon 13:17
what do you think was in there for him taking you under his wing and showing you all this?

Shedrack Akintayo 13:24
I really didn't know. He said he just said he knew I had the potential that basically what he told me he knew I had the potential to be somebody to learn stuff and to create stuff. Just to me that that's basically I don't think anything was in it for him. I think

Tim Bourguignon 13:39
you should ask him that.

Shedrack Akintayo 13:41
Yeah, I think asking that in it. Gosh,

Tim Bourguignon 13:45
I had the chance to to do that yourself to take interest into someone and, and help this person a bit more closer closely to progress on their journey.

Shedrack Akintayo 13:56
Yeah, I've helped a couple of people both currently I actually have commitment issues because of I'm kind of dizzy and the whole machine is always crashing, and I don't want to keep people, like give people hope when I actually know deliver. So I stopped up doing it for a while now, but I helped a couple of people going forward in your career.

Tim Bourguignon 14:16
Okay, cool. Maybe we'll come out. We'll come back to that later on. Okay. So at some point, you went from Python two to more JavaScript, HTML, CSS, so html5 and and on the website, and what's going this way? Was it this this friend of yours, showing you project that he did? Or was it?

Shedrack Akintayo 14:37
Yes, exactly. If my friend showed me, a he, he's more of a front end developer. And of course, he was my mentor, and my mentor, but I think I liken it to what he was doing. I just wanted to do what he was doing. And the web was really, really fascinating a detail because I could actually see what I'm doing in the view time, I will actually make changes and see it happen. You will time. So I was just like moved by that ability to see a create stuff physically and also see that thing that

Tim Bourguignon 15:08
is it important to you to have this very short feedback and be able to do something CD the results right away and iterate on things.

Shedrack Akintayo 15:16
Yeah, I'm a visual. I'm a very visual person. I, I like seeing exactly what I'm doing there. I like having a view of whatever I'm doing. So yeah.

Tim Bourguignon 15:25
And this is also why you went more into the front end side of things.

Shedrack Akintayo 15:29
Yes, exactly.

Tim Bourguignon 15:30
Exactly. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So at some point you graduated, I suppose. Yeah, sure. And what happened after that?

Shedrack Akintayo 15:37
I don't think anything happened really because I was working. I was working for companies actually, maybe freelance contracts before I graduated, so it was just more of continuing what I've been doing since.

Tim Bourguignon 15:50
So you were you were freelancing already during your studies?

Shedrack Akintayo 15:54
Yeah, yes. Yes. Tell us more about that. Okay, so I the first job I got I was there for six months, it was to die free. It was I did it free. I did not collect a single amount of money from people. I just wanted to have the world experience events live in person. It's learning how to actually write them code for input for production and actually a new reward in experience. So it was really really I think he helped me He taught me going forward helping him for what what did you do there? I was writing frontend code HTML CSS at some point I was doing WordPress at Learn WordPress.

Tim Bourguignon 16:33
And that's that's unusual been working for six months for a company without being paid.

Shedrack Akintayo 16:39
Yeah, it's quite unusual outputs. I don't I didn't I didn't question it at that time, because I was too happy new and I wanted to just link so I was taking the Oh is more of an internship and even doing interns get to I mean interns get paid support it. I really think it I think the tickets been a very serious thing because I was I was still in school and I had support from parents, my parents and so I normally take a test now or something with them. So that's lame.

Tim Bourguignon 17:10
How did this relationship work out with the company? They were they were they expecting deliveries from you? I mean, did you have any investigations?

Shedrack Akintayo 17:19
Yeah. Did we expect him to do this for me? At some point stressing me. And after six months, I actually had to stop the job. I just told them that I can't doing I can't be working for free and they are actually pressurizing me like we do with pressurizing me. And I just I do them in a very mild manner. So it's not like I'm being rude or Unbeknown, grateful for them, learn from me learning from your, from your daily work, and I just do them. I want to learn most of somewhere else and get picked out on what I was doing while getting teach that the two kids took it very, very nicely. Like do we like tuition? Based in my career, I still don't see you at some point, he still reached out to me to talk to me and also just find out about how I'm doing.

Tim Bourguignon 18:07
Okay. Okay, but you haven't done any business with him since then. No,

Shedrack Akintayo 18:11
not yet. Sometimes we wanted to contact me, but I was not interested at that time. Okay,

Tim Bourguignon 18:17
okay. So this was your first freelancing full free gig and hopefully last

Shedrack Akintayo 18:23
Yeah, last last

Tim Bourguignon 18:27
shout out did the first one not for free go?

Shedrack Akintayo 18:31
Oh, it was really exciting because unlike so it was a lot of money at that time. For me Allen way I it was way for American American company, a company in the Silicon Valley, just like this league, our tech startup Galaga boats decoding in those. So I think I made a tweet on Twitter attend that I was looking for a remote job that I listed my skills and piston, my CV and various other resources. Simply when we take a look at it the tech only thing on sheet is actually mind blowing. Sometimes I feel like we don't deserve each other. Because we do really good things to a lot of people we actually be tweeting the tweets I got in on both of us, then put in about us. And then you want the ICS I finally said suit for those those people because of debating something. I was interested in artificial intelligence, you're using a potential things to think summarize law documents or contracts. So it was really really excited for me deep learning uttering and sentence was the buzzwords then so I really wanted to know what America was getting, like I said, so he wanted to know exactly how these things work in the real world. So I say to go meet him and it was a very, very, very fruitful relationship with Him. And yeah, of course, when my contract was done, I left

Tim Bourguignon 19:50
but he didn't have any experience in AI and deep learning before, did you?

Shedrack Akintayo 19:55
Yeah, no, no, no, not at all.

Tim Bourguignon 19:56
So how did you convince them that you were the right person for the

Shedrack Akintayo 20:00
I just told him about how cute goes on. I think so for the TC himself was very, I think he likes curious people. And from the discussion we had, he said he actually liked me because I was really, really interested in what they were doing. I was asking very specific questions. How do we doing this? How are we doing that? So I didn't really do much of convincing. I just said, just I just I just was meat. I just did me physically. I got

Tim Bourguignon 20:28
cool, cool. And then you you were working in JavaScript there?

Shedrack Akintayo 20:32
Yes. Yes. JavaScript. Yes.

Tim Bourguignon 20:34
Cool. Cool. Cool. What is the most important thing you learned in this contract? I think

Shedrack Akintayo 20:41
house walk with most things, does vary. A couch communicates better also, because we like totally different time zones. I mean, in the US, I'm in Nigeria, so actually had to learn how to prioritize things and actually stay I think communicating Difference like cultural background. We're different ethnic groups. So it was really really exciting then because I was able to survive physically

Tim Bourguignon 21:13
Did you do it again working remotely like this?

Shedrack Akintayo 21:16
Yeah. So for I think all my career I'm gonna see I've been working with the I am very, very few channel remotes work because I don't really need my players to see my face.

Tim Bourguignon 21:27
What would be the advice you would give to to people that would like to start working remotely? What What should they pay really close attention to

Shedrack Akintayo 21:36
communication, very, very important. Communication is key for every success of every most thing. Because competition gives this away this this gives this mindset that you're actually doing your work. You could not be even be stopped at some point to be stopped somewhere but constantly communicating with these people communicating to team members, we actually make them feel very, very comfortable today. I know that you are actually doing your work perfect. To competition is very, very you should learn communication skills very very important technical skills is one, that Gus is one everybody can have technical skills if you learn it properly, but I think soft skills were condition for me not empathy, undress, it's actually the most important I would see. Kenny got his basics, soft skills is the most important for everything, not just in remote teams

Tim Bourguignon 22:22
survive. Can you give us a bit more details about this communication, especially in the context of remote teams? What what is what exactly do you mean with communication? What are you communicating and when and how etc.

Shedrack Akintayo 22:36
So I would say giving the the standups about what you've been doing what you have done to achieve for blockers and things like that. So you necessarily do not have to be on this chain to you know, essentially not have to walk on the same timezone with him. Just, I don't know monitoring when they are weak when they are doing your work and constantly giving them feedback on how exactly you've been doing things. So for what have you Don't so far just keep constantly telling them that it's okay, I'm doing this, I'm doing that it's very, very important we save a voluminous amount of trust from the people they are working with, to always trust you. That is basically what is here to answer questions, especially the HPV vaccine, even you don't necessarily have to be attended to. At that point, just be conscious constantly be giving feedback on what you've been doing. Do you think there is a fear somewhere from from from the other side that you're trying to try to reduce some some kind of fear? Maybe the fear that you're not doing the right work or the fear that you're not working at all? Which kind of fears are you trying to, to ease to reduce? Well, obviously, it's very controversial, but then coming from Africa, from Nigeria, people in the EU America actually find it very difficult to trust him Africans or Nigerian specifically Because I don't know this this kind of vond mentality that Africans actually forced us which I do not agree with variable man mentality Sudhi ha going through a contract Africans going through that we Nigerians we have this pa on detective with running with our source code, you could do this without source code. So I think constantly communicating with them will reduce that fear to sitting points where it's actually no longer visible, your fan so that basically why I feel communication is very, very important is not just for Africans is for every single person because you are in as a remote company, you are a trustee or put these to somebody to people you actually have I've not seen physical, you understand. So it's it's very, very helpful when it comes to reducing the amount of fear the employers have

Tim Bourguignon 24:48
definitely absolutely fear and trust are the most important things that can make or break communication on the remote context. This is so important. And Didi use slack to use it emails? Are you? are you communicating every hour? Or are you once daily? How do you do this a bit more practically? So I communicate I

Shedrack Akintayo 25:10
think, once the sending FSN slack message can I send an email of what I don't know what I'm going to achieve in the next day or the next coming hours. So I basically use, but sometimes actually talk about non work stuff with my M, it's my team, just say, how you doing? How's everything? How's everything going in? What are we been doing lately, just to make them actually feel comfortable with me as a person. They're just us who are working together with them. So developing that personal relationship, then is also very important.

Tim Bourguignon 25:44
Mm hmm. That is very true. That's very true. And you're doing this intentionally to really build this connection with the team. Exactly. Exactly. Hmm. Very, very nice. Very nice. Um, how many of these remote gigs Have you done so far?

Shedrack Akintayo 25:58
Oh, Let's see about five.

Tim Bourguignon 26:02
Yeah. Okay, about five. Okay, um, how did they? Did they all go? Well? Or do you have one that went? Not so good as the other ones?

Shedrack Akintayo 26:10
Yeah, there was one. I think the second coin and for everything is Yeah, the one coin currently doing its Ico will be called because I think I had some technical gaps, I have to feel so it really helped me because learning TypeScript, I was working majorly in JavaScript. So they wanted someone that worked with TypeScript. And to give me the job do i do them is going to take a while for me to get used to TypeScript sports. I think they forgot the fact that it would take a while for me to get used to TypeScript to the extent to my next when I can deliver these waves by that and stuff like that. So I just didn't know what's going to take my ticket right now probably get on TypeScript, and maybe we can discuss for that on how we are going to move forward.

Tim Bourguignon 26:59
Okay. So you, you, you took a break for for a week, two weeks, three weeks a month to really get your skills up to date. Yeah. then going back to working for them. Yes, yes, yes. Hmm. Okay, how did they did they react to this idea?

Shedrack Akintayo 27:14
So I first did a TV like, they didn't want it to happen? Well, I think I just told them that okay, you know, what is our probably just leave fully live completely. Because if you just give me a chance to actually get better at this particular, and technology out deliver. And there was this particular guy that was already beginning relationship beats, like just personality issues, pebbles and is constantly competing with him. So he puts in the work for me, and you're like, Okay, you're gonna give me a chance to actually get better and come back.

Tim Bourguignon 27:47
Hmm. That is very interesting. From an employer point of view. I would say if a contractor came to me and say, Well, this is not working right now. I need to take a break and learn things. I'll come back to you I would have so much respect for this person that will be so amazing saying well this person really reflected on on things realize that there is a problem is already providing an idea for a solution that is both better for themselves and for the company that that actually awesome tell us more about about your your contracts what what what other things did you learn through these contracting gigs?

Shedrack Akintayo 28:31
I think basic technical skills very important I was I was what I was doing JavaScript, I learned a lot of things. I also web load technologies because they load Newton's to actually requesting for every company at work week is doing something exceptional. Like I think I, I, I have this tendency of not just doing for any company, you have to do something that's actually very interesting to me before our putting the word or try to get the contracts from you. So I like to know things I don't know. I make a lot of people. Let's continue a lot of people with various languages and coming from Nigeria way. Like you rarely see people that are from other languages or other countries you too are able to connect with people from other countries and it was really really exciting for me. We act sometimes I add to pronounce my name a million times or soup for the gazillion pronounce the abaya Dean will actually pronounce it very well so I'm quite impressed so yeah, I also technical skills very I learned a lot of things. Let's work more with different teams and then they get tax allowance or you just

Tim Bourguignon 29:38
it's so far it's been great for my car out see. Do you still search for new gigs on Twitter? Oh, how do you go about getting new clients?

Shedrack Akintayo 29:48
So I don't I would say I do it because most of the time when someone recommends me downs Joseph first and we I don't want to record the minds me on the reach out to me. I would probably consider, so what I just checked, maybe I checked LinkedIn, maybe angellist for companies actually looking for these contractors and just putting in water myself. But currently, I Currently I work full time for a healthcare

Tim Bourguignon 30:16
startup in Nigeria, but also remotely or you're on site,

Shedrack Akintayo 30:19
some data on sites and these notes just depends on where we are having seen meeting so we press Professor oximeters, physically so people can actually see each other and talk about things. But most of the time when I work, I work remotely.

Tim Bourguignon 30:32
Okay, how is this this going from, from the sole contracting remote gigs to having a company that's actually local, where you can walk into and see people?

Shedrack Akintayo 30:44
Yeah, I think for me, it was very interesting because I did not, I would say, I did not know how to work physically with teams. So it was very interesting for me and I was not I was not a Loon. I was not lonely because when I woke up to my police one, Ilona There's a way to talk to there's nobody to talk physically to and also develop a personal relationship with. So it's really helped me and my personality, excuse the hook my personal skills and also it helped my team skills because so here we actually do things physically. So specking out documents, joint diagrams, I also learned a lot of flowcharts so we did all these things physically. So in the future when I possibly become a team leader or becoming a, a top a CTO or something specking out documents and things like that would be really really interesting for me or easy for me. Where do you want to take your career in the future? Um, I did a new ebook for a fortune 500 company at some point in my life. That's my that's my major aim. Then I been thinking I've been having this feeling about intrapreneurship maybe starting my own company at some points but so far that's know what I've been thinking of now. I just want to walk have a very, very good CV which a lot of good companies are need suit that No one wants to start a company, I would know exactly how companies are run. And yeah, basically what my career. So I was just work for a fortune 500 company, at some point where my work is actually appreciated my work because I appreciated I paid I put up a range of constitutional loads, we actually do many of your meaningful work and impacts people's lives. My work.

Tim Bourguignon 32:21
Let's switch gears a little bit. You said you're a fan of open source software development. Yeah, you tell us more about this.

Shedrack Akintayo 32:28
Yes. So um, I think I had a friend that was a he, I think he lends programming to open source. He he was this he was part of a particular program that we do all the time where a particular company, I think sugar labs, they educational company in the US, he came over to Nigeria to talk about open source and also give laptops to students to children in the community. So my friend cuts into the Holsteins voting as I was about nine years old. So he had been like an open source so far sin introduced me to, oh, you can actually walk with people in a lane with people corrupt collaboratively with open source, they actually work on real world projects with open source. So I when I got into open source, I was looking at projects I was contributing to them. When is this something I notice and I sent the PR image and I like that, you know, the feeling of managing your PR on a variation is I love by doing it by working on Apollo, the pricing is very interesting to me. So at some point he he started his own open source community. So Bitcoin is open source community, Africa. So it's the largest open source community in Africa. We are in like about seven to 10 countries currently. And at some point I was leading the legal chapter in Lagos, Nigeria, chapter two, which we already covered in Africa. We are going to be about 10 according to about 10 countries or so, or on 10 countries we are officially gospel open source I will see talking about how hypnosis can help you grow your carrier and funny thing is you can actually make money from open source you actually distinct that guy actually companies actually putting bug bounties and raised I can't really make money and then I can decide from open source so we talk about open source, how open source can help people your carrier have open source can help you get better your technical skills and also also at some point make money from it while doing it because I think major motivation for programmers out see is making money out on time because we are getting paid for the job they are doing. It's motivates us to do better work. So here to basically just does why I'm very huge fan of open source AI and I currently lead the Lego chapter we are planning on a very, very huge festival open source project. The Open Source festival in February 2020. In Nigeria, so we have a low Silicon Valley guys coming and ladies coming for the column for the festival. It's going to be very interesting and I cannot wait.

Tim Bourguignon 35:14
Tell us more about this festival. What are you playing there?

Shedrack Akintayo 35:16
Yeah, so we are planning to bring together open source contributors, a lot of open source contributors and also open source beginners that want to go into open source development. We are going to create a recreation economy festival where if you also have open source projects you would like to showcase to people you'd also have the chance to showcase to people currently, I think we have quotes Facebook, Microsoft, I'm open collective. A lot of companies are actually coming to Nigeria all the way from the US to Nigeria for the particular fish as well.

Tim Bourguignon 35:54
Wow. That is a feat in itself.

Shedrack Akintayo 35:58
Yeah, it's like Don't wait. It seems too good to be true. But just as the city devotees are excited about it,

Tim Bourguignon 36:09
that's that's very well, congratulations. Um, what's what's what's your your daily work for this community? What What do you do? personally?

Shedrack Akintayo 36:19
Okay, so I can't do most of time I have to. Um, so we have these live chats, we have chats, we have a community chats where a lot, a lot of people that come to our events, give them a link to cones, really where we have a forum. So people ask questions, and I tend to help them answer questions. Also, we have events daily, I try to seek for sponsors. I also try to get venues fotografie like a lot of things really, really, really, as well. It's it's overwhelming, but I think the times where it

Tim Bourguignon 36:55
is really sounds like a like a side job.

Shedrack Akintayo 36:59
Exactly. It isn't like that. But it's interesting. It's adunni, totally free free. I'm not getting paid for anything. Everything currency related, I do is free. I don't get paid for things. And I don't want to get paid for anything because the community helped me when I was growing up in my career, so is my way of giving back to the communities.

Tim Bourguignon 37:17
Nice. Very nice. When you see newcomers coming into this community, what would you give them four advices to to get started in open source,

Shedrack Akintayo 37:29
I would say of course, join open source community, Africa. Africa, I'm going setting a lot of variables that open source on GitHub, on GitHub, where you can actually go to the pull request, you could actually check issues check pull request, check issues I could actually fix. Check it, try your best to fix the thing. The PR if it gets made will does great if it doesn't get made, continue doing what you are doing. Don't, don't stop because open source is very powerful. And a lot of software that we are using today that we actually depend upon to do is actually open source projects at some point. So open source just keep doing what you're doing when you start doing stuff.

Tim Bourguignon 38:13
So find find issues and try to fix them. Yes, exactly. That's that's easier there. Is there a repository somewhere where you can find projects that are approachable for for newbies or so is there yeah, it

Shedrack Akintayo 38:28
is, I think open collective collective is a they are like a open source company that helped an open source projects for seek funding. So they have a particular repo of projects, from beginner to advanced of issues from beginner to advanced that you can actually get paid for because every single every single issue has a price tag on it. So you can actually make money while working on very, very simple projects.

Tim Bourguignon 38:56
That's really cool. Yeah, Bobby, Bobby gets The link to use it and maybe added a description of the Let's do this. Let's do this. Okay, Where can the listeners continue this discussion with you?

Shedrack Akintayo 39:08
Oh, I'm on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter CUDA underscore black, the LD co d r underscore v LTC key, but Twitter, then you also send me an email my last name my first [email protected]

Tim Bourguignon 39:23
Okay, um, is the community open for everyone? So you can Yeah, just get in there.

Shedrack Akintayo 39:29
Yes. Yes. Very, very open. They open friendly.

Tim Bourguignon 39:32
Cool. And do you have anything coming up on your plate in the next month so if you want to to plug in,

Shedrack Akintayo 39:38
um, I would say of course open source coming to Africa and Oh, so this is the first this is the second on Sundays anyway, but I'm going to be working on the songs, a couple of courses we LinkedIn that will be come out next year. So yeah, if you can tell what is coming up for me when work on a computer. I have a couple of courses for Beginners to maybe JavaScript on with LinkedIn. So it's gonna come out next year. I'm quite excited for it that this guy and of course the open source festival coming up in February 2020 from February 20 to February 22. And Funny thing is on the 21st of February is my bed is my baby as well as doing the open source festival so I'm quite excited about it.

Tim Bourguignon 40:29
That's that's fun. But that's that's the thing. Yeah, yeah. I'm not entirely sure this was a This was accidental. You might have planned this.

Shedrack Akintayo 40:37
It's exactly accidental. Because when we when we do a like, I wasn't part of planning for the time for the EMT to the main founders, the about to a lady and he got that's my friend, you guys my friend. And he's also my friend. So I think I just saw favoriten syntax in secona. Like, wow, Tim, Tim Ferriss is like my bedroom like wow, I went to be praxian

Tim Bourguignon 40:59
Don't just does exciting despite exciting, I guess it is, what should I

Shedrack Akintayo 41:05
it's been fantastic. hearing your story.

Tim Bourguignon 41:08
Thank you very much for sharing it with our audience. I had a very wonderful time to experience my carrier. It was really, really interesting. Thank you, Tim for the opportunity. And this has been another episode of developer's journey. We will see each other next week, bye. All right, this is Tim from a different time and space with a few comments to make. First, get the most of these developer's journey by subscribing to the podcast with the app of your choice, and get the new episodes automagically, right when the air. The podcast is available on all major platforms. Then, visit our website to find the show notes with all the links mentioned by our guests, the advices they gave us, their book, references and so on. And while you're there, use the comments to continue the discussion with our guests or with me, or reach out on Twitter or LinkedIn. Then a big big THANK YOU to the generous Patreon donors that help me pay the hosting bills. If you have a few coins to spare, please consider a small monthly donation. Every pledge, however small counts. Finally, please do someone a favor, tell them about the show today and help them on their journey.