I'm back in the job market and hunting for my next gig! I'm keeping an open mind about the type of company and technology industry I'd like to work with next; however, I'm looking for a full-time Developer Advocate, Developer Relations Engineer, Developer Experience Engineer, Developer Relations Program Manager, Solutions Engineer, Technical Writer, Documentation Engineer, Community Manager, or other similar developer/customer success roles with focus on developer relations/education, technical integrations, documentation, content production/marketing, and developer programs/community management.
A Little About Me
I’m a Software Engineer (focusing on JavaScript/Python web engineering, data analysis, and embedded systems—Raspberry Pi mainly), Content Creator, Teacher, and Developer Advocate with five (5) years of professional working experience. I’m very passionate about sharing knowledge, developer education, helping them become better at what they do, working with developers/customers, and helping dev-tool companies connect and sustain profitable relationships with their IDPs/ICPs. I’m mostly writing technical articles on my blog, running a bi-weekly newsletter, building open-source projects, organizing/speaking at meetups/conferences, and building technical communities. Being able to solve problems systematically and efficiently is my greatest strength. Using a hands-on technical approach paired with strong communication and management skills, I collaborate with people, establish and lead teams, professionally develop support, enhance operations, and manage information systems, communities, and solutions.
As a developer advocate, I've spent the last years working with outstanding teams, building great developer and API products. This developer relations career portfolio will show you why I would be a valuable addition to your company.
What I Can Offer
Here are a few reasons that make me a great addition to your team:
I'm keen on doing my best in any responsibility assigned to me. It's a personal principle; I always strive to do my best on any given task using all that is available to me and iterate deliverables based on feedback.
I enjoy teaching, learning new stuff, and sharing knowledge. This is the foundation of my developer relations/education strengths and my entire career.
I can adapt to new conditions, company goals/visions, go-to-market strategy requirements, and the overall business needs of your developer product.
I'm an honest person and don't tell lies. I won't tell developers that your product is the best in the world (unless proven), but I will take my time to understand the key strengths/benefits/limitations of your product and scream the benefits to developers at the top of my voice, show them how those benefits offer them value, help them get comfortable with building with your product, and build a trust relationship with them.
I have solid experience working with and leading developer communities since my teenage years, with some notable ones being Meta Developer Circles (previously Facebook Developers Circles), GitHub Education Campus Expert, and Open Source Community Africa.
I have a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science. While this is usually not an essential determinant for most companies, it is valuable to me. I spent quite some years acquiring theoretical, practical, and research knowledge that impacts some of my current strengths and interests (especially around Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Data Analysis, Machine Learning, Electronics, and Embedded Systems).
Aside from my years of solid technical writing experience:
I'm mostly humorous, and people enjoy working with me :).
My key strengths are:
Writing code for things that work on the web using JavaScript, TypeScript, Reactjs, Nextjs, Python, Flask, and other frameworks.
Writing code for things that work on embedded systems using Python, OpenCV, and other related libraries.
API documentation.
Technical content creation.
Content production/marketing.
Community/programs management.
Data analysis and reporting.
Developer events organization.
Educational programs management.
Educational curriculum development.
Memes collection and efficient distribution :).
As the next member of your team, I will bring my software engineering and developer relations experience to:
Build trust relationships with developers and customers using your product.
Stand as a mediator between your product and developers using the products—helping them be successful with your product offerings.
Talk to your prospective technical or non-technical customers in different engineering teams and help them understand the value of your product.
Build tools, code demos, integrations, content, educational materials, and documentation to ensure developers can fully utilize your products.
Work with strategic partners to show the power of your product when composed with other tools and services developers love (including both open-sourced and commercial) by building brilliant/creative integration ideas and templates.
Educate developers on your product via open-source, public speaking/technical workshops at conferences or local developer meetups, documentation, and published tutorials/videos.
Lead conversations around the latest technology advancements and best practices around and outside your product in the developer community at in-person events, online events, or social forums.
Build, grow, and nurture a community of developers who use your product.
Work closely and collaborate with your engineering, product, marketing, sales, customer success, and other existing internal teams to improve your product's developer experience.
Test your new product features and give early feedback that will aid improvements.
Gather feedback from the developer community on old/new product features for further planning, prioritization, and shipping.
Track and measure the success and failure of the activities and responsibilities you assign to me, showing the business value of developer relations at your company.
DevRel Career Achievements
Here are some notable and publicly available samples of my DevRel, content creation, open-source work at my previous companies, non-profit educational commitments, and community engagements.
All technical writing content: https://blog.bolajiayodeji.com.
Archive of my weekly newsletter: https://bawd.bolajiayodeji.com.
All public speaking slides: https://slides.com/bolajiayodeji.
All writings on freeCodeCamp: https://freecodecamp.org/news/author/bolajiayodeji.
All writings on opensource․com: https://opensource.com/users/bolajiayodeji.
Code and Integration Samples
You can find all my code, documentation, and other contributions to personal and external OSS projects on GitHub.
chat-with-siri — A text-to-speech audio chatbot built using Nextjs, OpenAI, and ElevenLabs. I worked on the code, documentation, and supporting tutorial to show how developers can leverage generative AI models to provide LLM audio chat solutions to consumers.
commercelayer-sanity-template — A multi-country ecommerce template built using Commerce Layer API, JavaScript, TypeScript, Nextjs, and Sanity Studio. In my previous role, I worked on the code and documentation to show the strengths of Commerce Layer's API when composed with a headless CMS for managing both commerce and content data in an ecommerce store. I worked on the first version of the project alongside a colleague (Ale!) and began maintaining the project afterwards to ensure it was up-to-date. My recent contributions were:
Refactoring the components and UI logic, implementing the use of a single locale for product slugs, code cleaning, and migrating to the pnpm package manager in PR #74.
Upgrading to the latest Sanity version (v3) and Nextjs 13, fixing all breaking changes, updating the groq queries to use createClient in next-sanity, adding French translations for i18n, and introducing schemas type-checking with TypeScript in PR #67.
nextjs-contentful-store — A multi-country ecommerce store built using Commerce Layer API, JavaScript, TypeScript, Nextjs, and Contentful. I worked on the first version of the project and documentation. I improved the initial sanity-template code here, introducing a new cart implementation using Commerce Layer's hosted-cart and other additions in PR #5.
pay-with-tweet — A demo external payment gateway that enables customers to pay for an order by just making a tweet without any cash transaction built using Commerce Layer API, Twitter API, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Nodejs. I worked on the code, documentation, and supporting tutorial to show the strengths and flexibility of Commerce Layer's external payment gateway.
commercelayer-slackbot — A Slackbot that responds with orders/returns summaries upon request and allows users to checkout pending orders directly from a Slack channel built using Commerce Layer API, JavaScript, TypeScript, Slack Boltjs library, and Supabase. I worked on the code, documentation, and supporting tutorial.
sendgrid-templated-emails — A Nodejs script for sending templated order confirmation (or any type) emails to customers using Commerce Layer Webhooks, SendGrid API, and Zapier Code Runner. I worked on the code, documentation, and supporting tutorial.
twilio-sms-notification — A Nodejs script for sending an SMS notification to customers when an SKU that had finished is back in stock using Commerce Layer Webhooks and Twilio SMS API. I worked on the code, documentation, and supporting tutorial.
Content and Documentation Samples
Teaching/Workshops/Podcast/Public Speaking
👨🏾🏫 Deploying Machine Learning Models to the Web (workshop material).
👨🏾🏫 Building an Ecommerce Solution with Commerce Layer Demo Stores (workshop material).
👨🏾🏫 Anatomy of the Web and Version Control (workshop slides).
👨🏾🏫 Version Control with Git and GitHub (workshop slides | video).
🎤 Effective Documentation: The Key to Open Source Growth (slides | video).
🎤 What is Headless eCommerce? feat. Bolaji Ayodeji - Effective Product Development #0005 (video).
🎤 This Dot Media State of Web Performance 2/22/22 (video).
🎤 Building Composable Commerce on the Cloud for Emerging Markets (slides).
🎤 Headless Commerce done right, with Commerce Layer (slides | video).
🎙️ Sustain OSS Episode 131: Bolaji Ayodeji on Open Source Community Africa (podcast).
🎙️ Web Standards and Future Trends: Staying Ahead in the Evolving Web Landscape (podcast).
Courses and BootCamps
I organized a Software Engineering BootCamp at Thomas Adewumi University in 2022 for their university and high school students that introduced them to key areas of Software Engineering, such as Data Science, Machine Learning, and Full-stack Web Development. Aside from organizing and managing the entire BootCamp/Curriculum, I taught the Anatomy of the Web and Version Control class.
Although not publicly visible (only visible to registered students), I partnered with AltSchool Africa in the past to teach an Introduction to Open Source and Version Control with Git and GitHub course for their School of Engineering Class of 22” and 23". I have since received good feedback from students who took the course (most of which were verbal, but you can find some written ones below).
Extra Community and Open Source Contributions
I'm currently a core team member and the community manager for Open Source Community Africa, a community for open source lovers, enthusiasts, advocates and experts within and across Africa with the sole aim of increasing the rate of credible contributions by African software developers, designers, writers and everyone involved in the sphere of technology to open source projects both locally and globally. I manage the digital community on Discord of 4000+ members, co-organizing and facilitating virtual community events, managing communications via newsletters and blog posts, preparing fiscal year budgets, preparing community/event data visualization/reports, facilitating community partnerships with companies like GitHub, Google OSPO, SustainOSS, Propel, TalentQL, etc., supporting community members to participate in OSS programs like Hacktoberfest, GSOC, GSOD, Outreachy, etc., and running the Chapters program that spans 30+ chapters in three continents of Africa. Over the years, we have had commendable community growth and results of members contributing to OSS, creating OSS projects, and advancing their careers.
I have also been co-organizing the yearly Open Source Festival and Sustain Africa with other core team and committee members for three years now. The festival is a conference that attracts student delegates, developers, designers and corporate organizations on a large scale with a series of talks, workshops, and awareness of open-sourced developer tools (the biggest of its kind in Africa and Nigeria). Sustain, on the other hand, is a one-day conversation for open-source maintainers and contributors where we talk about Sustainability—the sustainability of resources and the sustainability of its people, the comprehensive overview of how FOSS is developed, maintained, utilized with the aim of providing a roadmap for solving the cultural, financial, and institutional issues among open-source project maintainers. You can read the 2023 community report to learn more.
Testimonials
Here's what a couple of my previous colleagues and industry leaders have to say about my work:
💡
It has been my pleasure to know and collaborate with Bolaji for several years now, and to say he is a gem in the tech community would be an understatement. Bolaji stands out as someone who is not only a competent Developer Advocate but one also genuinely cares about uplifting and educating others. One of Bolaji's most striking qualities is his passion for sharing and teaching. As he learns, he shares that knowledge, ensuring that others too can benefit. His content, which spans a wide array of tech topics, is a testament to his versatility as a Developer Advocate. Apart from his technical acumen, what makes Bolaji an exceptional Developer Advocate is his kind and humble nature. He interacts with everyone with so much respect and humility, creating an environment of trust and collaboration. His track record, from his involvement with leading developer communities to his insightful technical writings, speaks for itself. For companies seeking a Developer Advocate or Developer Experience Engineer who will go the extra mile, invest wholeheartedly in community growth, and bridge the gap between product teams and developers with grace and expertise, Bolaji Ayodeji is the one. I am confident that he will continue to make significant positive impacts wherever his journey takes him, and you'd be fortunate to be a part of this story. —
Angie Jones, Global VP of Developer Relations at
TBD at Block, Inc.
💡
Bolaji has a natural passion for knowledge and a firm grasp of modern FE engineering tools and techniques. He is a self-starter and unique in his ability to confidently transfer knowledge and pen his thoughts in a coherent and succinct manner. I have always known him to be a hardworking and pleasant person to work with. Bolaji’s future is bright and I cannot wait to see all that he will accomplish. —
Joseph Akintola, Founder and CEO of
Deposits.
💡
I got the opportunity to work alongside Bolaji at Hashnode and it has been an immense learning experience. Bolaji is passionate about what he does and deeply cares the values. He has always been supportive to the team members. He takes his responsibilities seriously and deliver the best result possible. He played a key role in the growth of Hashnode in past here. Personally, I have learned a lot about technical writing and content creation from him and I would always be grateful for that. —
Shad Mirza, Senior Software Engineer at
Hashnode.
💡
I have had the pleasure of working with Bolaji for over 4 years on Open Source Community Africa and I can confidently say that he is one of the most hardworking individuals I have ever worked with. His work ethic is unparalleled, and he has an innate ability to take charge and lead tasks with ease. I have experienced Bolaji take on numerous challenges and handle them all with grace and efficiency. He is always quick to take the lead on new tasks and projects, and his ability to juggle multiple responsibilities is truly remarkable. Additionally, he has an incredible attention to detail and always ensures that everything he works on is of the highest quality. He is a true asset to any organization or company and I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with him for so long. —
Peace Ojemeh, Ecosystem Development at
Ethereum Foundation.
💡
Bolaji is focused, driven and excited about his work. He is a life long learner and a joy to work with. If you need things done with diligence and care, Bolaji is the person to reach out to. —
Hauwa Aguillard.
💡
I rarely come across energetic talents who stand out like Bolaji. I had the pleasure of supervising Bolaji during his internship at Energy Detectors. His ability get things done fast while maintaining industry standard is unlike any I've seen before. I totally recommend working with him. —
Abdul Rahman.
Please feel free to share any opportunity you find or referrals; I'd be happy to share my resume on demand. While I look forward to settling somewhere full-time, I'm open to doing short-term contract or consultation work for you or your company/project if your needs fit into any of my strengths. So, if you have anything for me, you can email me at mailtobolaji@gmail.com or DM me on LinkedIn or X (Twitter). Thank you 💙!
:).
