The Geek Circle The Voice of Africa’s Tech Community
Idris Olubisi never imagined he’d become a DevRel or a backend engineer. He was focused on getting a lucrative job in the oil and gas sector after completing his university degree. By chance, his final year project required him to do some software engineering. Just when he started, his laptop got stolen. Despite this setback, he decided to use his phone to code. “The moment that shifted everything was when I built my first working programme on my HTC mobile phone using the Sololearn app. I realised that if I could create something out of nothing with just this device, then there’s so much more that’s possible.”
Idris has gone on to become a Senior DevRel engineer who has built developer communities across Web2 and Web3. He’s an international speaker and has an impressive technical writing portfolio. Not only that, but he is also a UK global talent, one of the elite professionals recognized for their impact in the tech ecosystem.
This is his story.
The rocky climb to success
Building that first working program on his HTC phone was exhilarating. But the reality of learning to code in Nigeria almost killed his dream of coding.
He couldn’t afford to replace his stolen laptop. Data was expensive. “There’s nothing like staying online for me then, because it’s either my data is on, or my data is off, or I don’t have the data at all,” he recalls.
Then there was electricity. Even after graduation, when he moved back to Lagos, power outages plagued his learning. He noticed light was restored around midnight, so he stayed up waiting.
During the day, he found a mosque and church near his area with electrical outlets extending outside. “I remember staying there for weeks, like going and coming back every two hours at least, so I can charge my system.”
Despite these obstacles, Idris kept going. He landed his first full-time role at Tavia Technologies in April 2019, working on SharePoint applications for MTN Nigeria, NPDC, and Access Bank. From there, he moved through backend engineering roles at Philanthrolab and Luna before discovering developer relations.
In July 2022, he joined Mara as a Developer Relations Engineer, scaling their campus club from zero to 18+ universities and reaching 30,000+ developers across Africa. By April 2023, he moved to Axelar, where he’s now engaged over 100,000 developers globally.
Discovering a passion for technical writing
There’s a chance that one of Idris’ technical articles has helped you or a developer you know. His path into technical writing started in 2019. He was working on a Microsoft .NET solution and got stuck on a complex problem. After hours of searching, he found an article that solved it perfectly. The article was written in 2007.
“That was a turning point for me,” he recalls. “2007 content helps me solve this problem now? I was blown away. I was stuck in this problem for a very long time before I found that solution.”
The experience crystallized something he’d always believed: documenting solutions could help people years later. Back in university, his classmates called him “Confam O” because he would solve problems, write them on A4 paper, sign them with that nickname, and share the solutions. Students would photocopy his work and pass it around.
“That experience of creating something reusable for other people has been there somehow,” he says. “Tech gave me the opportunity to double down on that even more.”
He started writing technical articles, documenting anything he was learning. He didn’t know what to write about at first, so he just wrote about his process. “Every tutorial should leave readers able to do something they couldn’t do before. What is obvious to me might be a barrier to somebody else.”
Then came the financial validation. His first major payment for an article was $150 USD, equivalent to his entire monthly salary at the time. He wrote it in one week, got it reviewed, and got paid. “I realized that if I could get paid my salary for the month from this article, then it means if I double down and do better, I can make the most out of this opportunity.”
Today, his articles have been viewed millions of times across platforms like FreeCodeCamp, LogRocket, and his personal blog.
Walking different paths led him to DevRel
When Idris started considering Web3, he faced a choice. Should he transition as a technical writer? A full-stack blockchain engineer? Or something else entirely?
“I started asking so many questions, and the only thing that gave me the opportunity to become a blockchain engineer, a community person, a technical writer, and a builder was developer relations.”
In DevRel, he could help thousands of developers solve their own problems, creating what he calls “a multiplier effect.”
“Developer relations feels most like home for me because it combines everything I love: building, teaching, community,” he explains. “The product is the developer experience, and your code is the documentation, tutorials, and community engagement.”
He splits his time roughly 50% on community and content, and 40-50% on building. But the ratio shifts based on what’s needed. Some days he’s deep in documentation. Other days, he’s writing code, experimenting, testing things himself. Sometimes he’s helping the community or creating educational content to fill gaps he’s identified.
The paths he’d walked, backend engineering and technical writing, were preparation for a role where he could combine his technical skills and his love for teaching at scale.
Building software and building community are intertwined
For Idris, building software and building community aren’t separate activities. They feed each other. “Building gives me credibility and real problems to solve. But community gives me perspective on what actually matters to developers,” he explains.
He draws inspiration from Nader Dabit, founder of Developer DAO and now Director of Developer Relations at Anza. Despite holding C-level positions, Nada still creates videos and shares what he’s learning on weekends.
These ideas around community and mentorship inspired him to start Web3 Afrika. When Idris started transitioning into Web3, he noticed a problem. African developers were being left out of the conversation. Web3 felt like hype with no clear pathway to real impact. The resources, hackathons, and opportunities were centered elsewhere.
“The barrier to entry felt artificially high,” he says. “I saw this as an opportunity to restart the whole internet conversation again, since it’s a new internet era.”
He built Web3 Afrika to make this new wave accessible to African builders.
Since then, Web3 Africa has grown to over 15,000 builders across the continent. It’s evolved from just education to becoming a bridge that connects African talent to global opportunities. They run practical workshops that leave people with something they can use immediately. They extend partnerships that expand access to hackathons, grants, and job opportunities.
What makes it work is consistency and authenticity. “We show up regularly with valuable content and not just hype,” Idris says.
Changing the way we think about Web3, one conversation at a time
Building a community of 15,000 developers means constantly addressing the same question: Is Web3 just hype?
The misconception is global, but the most dangerous one to Idris is simple. “That Web3 is only about speculation and getting rich quickly.”
He encounters it everywhere, from skeptical developers to people who’ve only heard about NFTs and crypto crashes. His approach is to redirect the conversation from problems to solutions built on Web3. Then he shows practical applications that are working today, not theoretical futures. Cross-border payments are his go-to example. Stablecoins have become a practical tool for freelancers receiving payment from international clients. Traditional systems are expensive and slow, taking days to process.
“You can’t take cross-border payments away from Web3, whether you think it’s hype or not,” he argues. Companies are recognizing this. Paystack recently started integrating stablecoins. Even PayPal launched its own stablecoin.
Beyond payments, he points to verification and digital identity layers as emerging practical applications. The key, he insists, is focusing on problems people actually have, not getting excited about technology for its own sake.
It’s slow work. But Idris believes people will come to see the value and impact of Web3 very soon.
Africa just needs infrastructure and opportunity
Idris sees the African tech ecosystem transforming. Compared to when he started in 2011, the change is dramatic. “There was little to nothing happening then. But now we are doing very, very well. There’s a lot of communities, a lot of talented people coming up every day.”
But talent alone isn’t enough. Infrastructure remains the challenge. Idris envisions Africa becoming a significant player in Web3 adoption, not just as users but as builders. “The talent is here. We just need infrastructure and opportunity to match.”
For founders navigating the current funding landscape, his advice is practical and unromantic. Build something people want before chasing funding. “Revenue and traction speak louder than pitch decks.”
He acknowledges the difficulty. Early-stage support is hard, and founders need to do a lot of convincing. But he also urges founders to put themselves in investors’ shoes. “You don’t want to build something that you yourself cannot fund and then think people will come and fund it.”
If possible, pilot the program somehow. Raise a small amount from friends to keep things running. Having something to show beyond a pitch deck makes all the difference. And when approaching investors, target those who understand the African market. “There is too much friction in explaining context to investors who don’t get it.”
He also encourages founders to explore grants seriously. They’re non-dilutive and often more accessible than VC funding for early-stage companies.
Beyond funding, the ecosystem needs more people building in public. “We need to share more openly: what is working, what is failing, who is hiring, where the funding is,” he says. “Too often information stays siloed.”
Sharing in the open also helps upcoming developers. Good documentation, clear learning paths, and communities where questions get answered can provide mentorship to people who may never have one-on-one access to experienced developers. “Mentorship accelerates everything because you learn from someone else’s mistakes instead of making all of them yourself.
When asked about success, he is focused on impact. “How many developers can I help? What systems am I building that would outlast my own direct involvement?”
From coding on a HTC phone to building communities of thousands, Idris‘s journey has been about converting constraints into creativity and individual achievement into collective progress.
“I will be so much fulfilled when I look back in the next five years and then look into how many people have benefited and what impact have I done in the ecosystem.”
