Kazeem Olanipekun
@kazeemolanipekun
I build cost-efficient, high-uptime fintech and commerce platforms at scale.
NigeriaWhat I'm looking for
At Sabi, I own the Engineering, IT and Infrastructure P&L for a $400M+ annual-GMV B2B commerce platform operating across African markets. I directed three departmental heads across a 124-person organisation and built the platform foundations that sustained 99.95% uptime.
I designed DeployMe, an in-house IaaS running 150+ live instances, reducing cloud spend from $30K to $2.8K monthly. I also architected SabiCloud, the multi-tenant PaaS behind six production platforms spanning core banking, payments, commodity trading, wholesale commerce and logistics.
I built Sabi Coding AI, a quality-gated engineering system that helped consolidate the organisation to a 20+ senior core while maintaining delivery velocity. Earlier, I co-led FirstBillsPay and FirstChekout for First Bank Nigeria, infrastructure serving 40M+ account holders and NGN 3.3T+ in annual payment volume.
I've led engineering across fintech, SaaS, digital commerce and distributed systems through Sabi, Clane, consulting engagements and founder-led ventures. I'm looking to run technology as a business lever through a CTO, Deputy CTO or SVP Engineering mandate, alongside advisory and board work.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Co-Founder and CTO
Avaye
Jan 2024 - Present (2 years 8 months)
Co-founded a social real estate and services platform with escrow-protected, milestone-based settlement and stablecoin payouts.
Engineering Leader
Sabi
Jan 2023 - Present (3 years 8 months)
Owns Engineering, IT and Infrastructure P&L and strategy across multiple African markets. Directed three departmental heads across a 124-person organisation, built DeployMe IaaS and SabiCloud PaaS, and reduced cloud spend by 91%.
Co-Founder and CTO
VentbyVendorstack
Jan 2023 - Present (3 years 8 months)
Co-founded a social commerce platform with 120K+ users and 100K+ transactions, settling creator payouts in Naira and stablecoin.
Co-Founder and Investment Partner
AvonAfrica
Jan 2019 - Present (7 years 8 months)
Co-founded and invested in early-stage companies across real estate, fintech and logistics.
Senior Engineering Consultant
Sabi
Jan 2023 - Aug 2023 (7 months)
Provided senior engineering consulting for Sabi, contributing to platform strategy and infrastructure design.
Lead Technical Specialist
iBridge
Jul 2022 - Feb 2023 (7 months)
Conducted final-stage technical evaluation across system design, database architecture and design patterns.
Senior Backend Engineer
Hotel Engine
Oct 2022 - Jan 2023 (3 months)
Worked on supply and rates management using Node.js and AWS Lambda.
Senior Backend Engineer
Climb Credit
Feb 2021 - Nov 2022 (1 year 9 months)
Developed ClimbPay loan payment integrations, school invoicing, webhook and API-key management, and PowerBI data integration.
Head of Engineering
Clane
Jan 2021 - Jul 2022 (1 year 6 months)
Led the engineering team and coordinated third-party delivery partners, owning goal setting, product guidelines, technical direction and engineering training. Delivered ClanePay and ClanePOS with USSD and QR channels, and modernised CI/CD to cut release cycle time by 40%.
Senior Backend Engineer
Coursedog
Jan 2022 - Jun 2022 (5 months)
Worked on curriculum and programme management for higher education.
Senior Software Engineer and Team Lead
WSD
Jan 2021 - Oct 2021 (9 months)
Developed Structured Product Intelligence and CUSIP search across millions of financial products.
Senior Software Engineer
Clane
Feb 2019 - Jan 2021 (1 year 11 months)
Contributed to the development of digital payment solutions and platform architecture.
Technical Lead and Senior Software Engineer
Tunga
Feb 2018 - Dec 2020 (2 years 10 months)
Provided technical delivery, architecture and DevOps for global clients; assessed and mentored 200+ African engineers.
Founder and Technical Lead
K-Devs System Solutions
Jan 2014 - May 2020 (6 years 4 months)
Founded and ran a software consultancy, starting in education technology and moving into contract product delivery for international clients.
Senior Software Engineer
StudioLabs
Sep 2019 - Mar 2020 (6 months)
Delivered contract software development for US and EU clients.
Senior Java Engineer
Upperlink Limited
Jun 2018 - Feb 2019 (8 months)
Co-led delivery of FirstBillsPay and FirstChekout, payment infrastructure serving 40M+ First Bank account holders. Built the full payment gateway and rebuilt the bills payment backend on Spring Boot.
Founder
Forge
Founded a multi-tenant AI software engineering platform with per-repository knowledge and a 33-agent fleet for audits, release planning and PRD generation.
Founder
Vazuta
Founded a commercial multi-tenant IaaS, offering container orchestration, tenant isolation and load-balanced deployment as an alternative to AWS and Azure.
Founder
LiveChatta
Founded a link-first team communication platform for the African market with JS SDK, REST and WebSocket APIs, embedded AI assistants, video and white-label theming.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Ondo State University of Science and Technology
B.Tech, Computer Science
2010 - 2015
Grade: First Class Honours
Activities and societies: Best Software Developer; scholarship fund winner.
B.Tech in Computer Science with First Class Honours. Awarded Best Software Developer and a scholarship fund winner.
Tech stack
Software and tools used professionally
Availability
Location
NigeriaAuthorized to work in
Salary expectations
Job categories
Skills
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