Hello everyone, yesterday we presented the interesting and enlightening conversation we had with Ifihan . And today we have the privilege of presenting to you, Ekene Eze. He is a Developer Experience Manager at Flutterwave, a technical writer and is passionate about startups and up and coming software developers. He made time out of his busy schedule to converse with us and answer our questions, and we have the honor of sharing his answers with everyone.
Hello Ekene. To set things in motion, can you please tell us why you chose to be a developer?
Honestly, I didn't plan to. I just had some free time during my NYSC and I used that time to do a lot of learning. Getting to know more about Software development made me love it even more and before I knew it, it became a part of my everyday life.
Wow! Who would have thought your journey would have such a checkpoint. And how has your daily life been, specifically during this global pandemic crises?
My daily routines have changed given the current pandemic situation. So at the moment when I wake up, I freshen up, as if I were going to work, put on some fresh clothes and go to my home based workstation. I work, attend meetings, and basically do all the tasks I have for the day. Then I relax with a movie, make some phone calls and call it a day.
Before we continue, we would like to ask a question, probably the most important question today - Puff puff or Fried plantain?
Puff puff, Lol.
You will be judged by our readers. What project are you currently most proud of being part of, and what role did you play?
The Flutterwave v3 API. I managed the project for Developer Experience optimizations. And I am proud of the results we had.
Follow up question, what is the biggest problem you have faced in any of your projects, and how did you solve it?
I'm not sure if this is the "biggest" in all of my projects, but the earliest is optimizing developer experience for my company's APIs. It is such a difficult task for various reasons that I'm not completely at liberty to share. So we solved it by investigating the problem a bit more and working with an amazing team to strategize a solution that worked.
I see. So in summary, to solve a problem, you do research, strategize and rub minds with competent people. After so much growth, which old piece of code would you be embarrassed to read again? How much has your code improved since then?
I used to build Android Apps with Java. I recently came across a blog post I wrote in 2017, and well, looking back at it I giggled and said to myself, there are a lot better ways I could've done this. I have improved a lot over the years, working in different teams and on different projects has helped me grow a lot in knowledge and experience.
Speaking of teams, how would you say your personality is viewed? Please do so with 5 adjectives.
- Cool
- Smart
- Fun
- Loyal
- Determined
- Honest.
Ok, I want to ask some questions, just to know your perception of how people view your work performance, and how you view yourself. Is that Ok?
Sure, no problem.
The first question is - who do you believe has had the best opinion of you?
My first employer, she'd always say that I was the smartest person she'd worked with. Her high opinions of me pushed me to become an even better person and I will always appreciate it.
The second one question is - who has the worst opinion of you, for whatever reason?
This one is probably easier, myself. To be honest I think I have the worst opinion of myself. I've never really ever felt that I know enough, that I work well enough, or that I contribute as much as I should to society. I just keep trying.
Ah, that feeling has kept a lot of developers down. It's good we have you here as proof that it can be overcome. The last question is who has the most balanced opinion of yourself?
My manager. He described me as "an excellent team player, who takes leadership initiatives, gets the job done in innovative ways and is not afraid to take new tasks outside his scope".
Now I wonder how I am viewed at work. What was the first dream of the future you hoped to achieve while growing up? Did you achieve it?
The first dream was, to one day, move out of my parents house, have my own apartments and do whatever I wanted. Yes, I did achieve it.
Finally, do you mind sharing what next step you hope to take in your career?
What's next for me is still growth. It is what I'm always looking forward to. An opportunity to be and do better.
Thank you so much for your time Ekene. I have to say, this conversation with you has been quite enlightening. We hope you keep on growing and continue doing the great work you do.
Thank you, and thanks for having me.
That concludes our interviews for the month. We have had four fantastic developers give a glimpse of their lives in front of and away from their work stations. We have received lots of feedback from you, and we hope to continue bringing more developers to your screens.
Please leave your thoughts in the comment section, and you may also contact us at developerschronicles@gmail.com.
To follow Ekene, his handles are:
Twitter: twitter.com/kenny_io
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peter-ekene-eze