#WorkarooAdvice: Tomiwa Lasebikan
Introduce Yourself
My name is Tomiwa Lasebikan and I’m Head of Product at BuyCoins. Well, I like to refer to myself as a Customer Support Associate because the job of everyone at BuyCoins is to make users happy — at whatever cost.
What does your job at BuyCoins entail?
My job at BuyCoins entails figuring out what users need and how we can go about prioritizing their needs: so everything from resolving user issues to identifying features that will make their lives better to communicating these to them so they know we care.
What are your favourite and least favourite technology products? And why?
My favourite tech product right now is WhatsApp. I’m proud of and amazed by how it has connected our world; you can be a lonely student in Texas and video call your parents in Ife. A decade from now, it’s probably going to be Bitcoin ;).
I don’t really have a least favorite piece of technology but I guess I tend to be disappointed that we haven’t figured out passwords: how to authenticate people in a way that is true and reliable but also incredibly easy for the user. We make users suffer too much because tech bros haven’t figured this out effectively. That sucks.
When is one “good enough” to apply for say a frontend developer position? What’s the minimum set of skills required?
I think a simple shorthand for deciding on most jobs that interest you is “just apply” especially when it’s low cost to apply. For one, preparing your application and preparing for interviews is a learning experience. Also, the worst case is you get denied but the realness of the experience can help you identify things to work on.
For most challenging jobs, no one is “good enough” anyways. And it’s even more important to propel yourself if you’re a minority: relatively young, a woman, an immigrant, black person in the West, etc because data indicates that those groups tend to underestimate their strengths.
What backend and frontend technologies are used at Buycoins?
Backend is built with Ruby on Rails. We also have one or two node.js applications — notably for our Ethereum and Bitcoin wallets. Frontend is ionic.
What qualities do you think are most important in a developer?
Independence, grit, and communication. Each of them plays an incredibly important role in moulding an excellent dev. You need to be independent and curious enough to learn a lot of things without a lot of help. Grit helps you fight bugs: you’re stuck with problems for hours, or some environment is not easy to configure or some API documentation is nonsensical. Grit is what keeps you going till you arrive at a solution. And communication is what makes your development effort sensible in the context of the team effort to build an amazing product: you need to be able to talk to users and product managers to help ensure your software makes sense and help build your intuition, you need to be able to effectively communicate blockers and update statuses, and you need to be able to talk about your ideas to up and coming developers so they learn from you.
I can’t code but I’m really interested in working in a tech company. What should I do?
There are quite a number of ways to break into tech. The ideal way is to find your skills and what excites you and figure how that interfaces in/with tech. Some non-obvious roles that are growing in Nigeria include UX research, Product Development, and Customer Support. You can also work in hiring or operations for instance. Tech easily intersects so what matters is finding your niche and honing it like Nadal mastered clay.
As a student or recent graduate who is still trying to figure out what I want to do in life, what can I start doing now to prepare myself for work?
The most important thing is self-development and growth. You want to look back a year from now and be proud and excited that you’ve made good use of your time. To paraphrase Paul Graham: work on hard problems.
How important is my resume when I’m trying to get hired?
It varies from job to job. For me and BuyCoins, not too important. It should just tell a story of what you’ve done over the last few years and should be organized but for the most part, it doesn’t carry a lot of weight with us. In general, it’s a part of your job application so be diligent with it, have a second and third eye review it and don’t spend too much time on it. Also, unless you’re in a specialized field like medicine or law, your resume should just be a page long.
What are some ‘not so obvious’ things to always do when preparing/going for an interview that’ll make you stand out?
Do a lot of research — about the company, their products, the interviewer, etc. Arrive on time, have backups for all the infrastructure you need, etc. I can’t overemphasize doing research. A lot of times, I interview people who don’t know what BuyCoins is about or have never downloaded our app or created an account and it’s incredibly disappointing. You should care about where you’re going to work and how you fit in and caring about what they do is the most basic of things.
What’s something that everybody that you choose to hire must have?
I look for people who haven’t been broken by Nigeria. That’s something important I measure for: Nigeria easily demands of us to be mediocre, late, ineffective, nonchalant etc. People can have weaknesses but it’s really important that they don’t give up on working on these weaknesses and on their own growth: that’s how high standards are nurtured.
What is something that immediately disqualifies people for you?
Personally, I don’t auto disqualify people. I give almost every candidate the chance to make a big mistake e.g., not proofreading your essay or showing up late but I expect them to be incredible in other aspects of their application.
What skills or attributes do I need to have to be able to work at BuyCoins?
Care about building incredible products, be eager to learn, and be an effective communicator.
When next are you hiring developers?
We are always hiring good people. Email our support team for an application link.
Editor: Emmanuella Nwosisi|@emmanwosisi
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