Hi everyone,
Please assist to review my application for the Exceptional Talent route. I have over 6 years of experience in software development (mobile - frontend and backend) in Fintech/Banking sector in Nigeria and I am currently in the UK working as a software developer in a product led Fintech. Thank you in advance!
LORs
- CTO of a financial company (former line manager from prev Job A)
- CIO from a Bank (former team lead form prev Job B)
- CEO and CoFounder of my product led startup
Evidence Overview (9 docs total)
Mandatory Criteria (4 docs)
OC1: Innovation as a founder/employee (3 docs)
OC3: Technical contributions (2 docs)
Mandatory Criteria
MC1: Product-led Fintech - CoFounder/CTO/Technical Lead
I am the founding engineer and currently lead the development of the app product that does cross border payments across Africa. I built the app from scratch (with git repo commits to show). The product was launched in 2022 and has over 15K downloads on the app stores and over 4000 registered users (about 2500 active monthly). It also generates just under $20K monthly revenue. The company is currently registered in Nigeria and Canada.
Screenshots (Evidence)
- Screenshots showing my code commits since 202
- Business registration and MSB license, also hyperlinked as its publicly available
MC1b: Tech Leadership and Fundraisin
I wrote the technical narrative for our first Y Combinator (YC) application and although we were not accepted on our first attempt, the experience and feedback is invaluable. To date, we have successfully raised $190,000 from investors and are currently raising our seed round at a $12 million valuation via a SAFE agreement.
Screenshots (Evidence)
- Screenshot from the Y Combinator application showing my co-founder profile including confirmation of my 20% equity ownership
MC2: National Award Recognition for Leadership and Innovation
Nominated by previous employer (a bank) to be a recipient of a “Next Generation Award” from the Chartered Institute of Bankers Nigeria (CIBN) - the national professional body for bankers. This award goes to one recipient from each bank and out of over 5000 employees, I was nominated by the CEO of the bank to receive the award. This was particularly because of my contributions to the account opening service (code level optimization) which acquired 1.1 million customers for the bank within the year when I took up the project.
Screenshots (Evidence)
- Invitation letter directed to the CEO of the bank from CIBN
- 4 images of me receiving the award on stage and the link to the press release by CIBN (my photo can also be seen in the press release)
MC3: Beyond Excellence Internal Award
I was a solutions engineer in another bank and was awarded the “Beyond Excellence” Award for demonstration of Excellence in Service, Leadership, Teamwork, Innovation, and Managing Risk. I led the dev team of over 10 devs and reported directly to the head of software engineering. I also managed critical projects and have some metrics to show contribution.
Screenshots (Evidence)
- The “Beyond excellence” award
- A plaque awarded in recognition of my innovative thinking and contribution to the bank’s digital transformation
- Screenshot showing me being added to the software engineering leaders group chat (though this is on whatsapp, I was added by the head of software engineering)
Optional Criteria
OC1a: Innovation as Lead engineer in the product from MC1
Screenshots (Evidence)
- Architectural diagrams, MVP app - both of which I created, git commits screenshots
OC1b: Reference letter from a former team lead who is also CEO of a startup which I CoFounded with him. I am the CTO/Tech lead and I manage the product development (backend and mobile app). The product is not live yet though but in its final stages. In the letter, he speaks about the projects I worked on when he was my team lead, the metrics, and the impact and why he had to invite me to join his startup to lead and drive the product dev. The product from this startup is a QR scan payment system, though it is not a new product or service, it is however an existing product in a new market with features tailored to the Nigerian Market.
OC3a: Developing the end to end lifecycle of the MC1 product
My contributions:
- Leading market research and feasibility studies that informed the creation of the product
- Delivering the core product from MVP to scalable platform
Screenshots (Evidence)
- Market research I led
- Screenshots showing timestamp from 2022 for contributions to the google drive docs relating to the product
- Email screenshot showing me sending MVP app designs to CEO for his review in 2021
- App MVP products and comparison with the product today (The designs have changed and I am the sole developer that has worked on the app till date
- Git commits screenshots
- Screenshot showing app impressions, download and total revenue in the first month which was $370k
OC3b: Working at my current job (a product led Fintech)
My contributions:
- Database migration from ATS to Cosmos DB that reduced a critical process from over 5 minutes to under 5 milliseconds - a 99.98% improvement in processing speed.
- Open source contribution (approved PR) on github to one of the largest accounting softwares with over 4.4 million customers.
Screenshots (Evidence)
- Open source PR contribution
- Teams internal screenshot of my manager, the CTO commending efforts on the database migration