Al-Amin Ajao knew one thing about the career he wanted: he did not want a white-collar job.
The routine of waking up every morning, dressing for work and spending Monday to Friday in an office did not appeal to him. He wanted something different, although he was not quite sure what that would be.
“I don’t like the corporate lifestyle. I cannot remember the last time I wore suit,” he says.
So, when Ajao entered Lagos State University (LASU) in 2016 to study electronic and computer engineering, he was not necessarily thinking about becoming a software engineer. He had chosen the course because he liked science and had followed the example of his elder brother, who was interested in computers.
That began to change when he met a group of friends who were learning to code.
He started writing code, building projects and attending hackathons while still in school. As he spent more time coding, he discovered something that made software engineering even more attractive: he could work while still having room for the rest of his life.
That flexibility appealed to Ajao and eventually convinced him that software engineering was something he wanted to pursue long-term.