How a single NYSC posting, a scholarship, and the grace of God shaped my career in software engineering
There are moments in life that don’t announce themselves as turning points. They arrive quietly, tucked inside sealed envelopes, and only later, when you look back, do you realise how much everything changed because of them.
Looking back today as a Software Engineer, I can confidently say that my journey into software engineering did not begin with a carefully crafted career plan. It began with uncertainty, faith, curiosity, and an opportunity that I almost overlooked.
For me, that moment came on the final day of NYSC orientation camp in Lagos, in February 2022.
An Engineer Who Loved Computers But Didn’t Write Code
I graduated with a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. That sounds impressive on paper, and in many ways it was. But walking out of university, I carried the same quiet uncertainty that so many fresh graduates carry: what now?
Throughout my years in school, I sat through lectures on circuits, signals, and systems. But what always made my mind wander was the software side of things. How did applications work at a deeper level? How did people build the tools I used every day on my phone and laptop? There was a curiosity in me that my engineering curriculum couldn’t quite satisfy.
The problem is that curiosity, without direction, can feel like standing in a large room with no map. My practical programming experience was limited. I had no clear roadmap for turning my fascination with technology into an actual career. And as my NYSC year approached, one of my biggest concerns was simply: what would I do after service?
I knew I wanted to work in technology. I just didn’t know where the opportunity would come from.
So I did what I have always done when I don’t have the answers. I trusted God and kept moving forward.
Camp, Uncertainty, and a Sealed Envelope
When I arrived at NYSC orientation camp in Lagos, I had no connections, no family influence over my posting, and no insider knowledge about where I would land. Just faith and the quiet hope that things would work out the way they were supposed to.
We had been assured that graduates from professional fields would likely be posted to organisations relevant to their disciplines. That was reassuring in theory, but theory doesn’t do much for you on the final day of camp when the posting letters are being distributed, and you still don’t know what’s waiting inside yours.
I remember the anxiety of that moment. Holding a sealed envelope that contained I didn’t know what. A direction. A future. Or maybe just an address.
When I finally opened the letter, one word stood out: Seamfix.
I stared at it for a moment, then immediately reached for my phone. What was Seamfix? What did they do? The search results told me it was a technology company building digital identity and enrollment solutions. My heart lifted almost immediately. I had been posted to a tech company. A real one.
As it turned out, a friend of mine had received the same posting. We looked at each other with a mixture of relief and curiosity, then decided to go find out what Seamfix was about together.
The Interview, the Academy, and Eight Scholarships
The Place of Primary Assignment conducted interviews for the corps members who had been posted there. Many of us showed up, hopeful and eager to be chosen. Only a select number were accepted.
I was one of them. And that, in ways I couldn’t fully appreciate yet, was the beginning of everything.
Seamfix was in the process of launching something called the NextGen Academy. Around eight of us were selected to receive scholarships for intensive software engineering training, and for over six months, we were immersed in something that would completely redefine our professional lives.
We studied software engineering fundamentals from the ground up. We built with Node.js. We learned how to think through problems methodically, how to work effectively in teams, and how to carry ourselves as professionals in a real technology environment. Most of us eventually specialised in backend development, which suited both our personalities and the kinds of problems we found most interesting.
The training was not easy. There were countless late nights spent debugging issues we didn’t fully understand, wrestling with concepts that seemed impossible at first contact, and pushing through moments when it genuinely felt like we were not making progress. But we were. We always were. We just couldn’t always see it in the middle of it.
The People Who Made It Real
If there is one thing I want anyone reading this to carry away, it is that the journey was never solo.
Tobi Oluruntoba, Joshua Olutunde, Hikmah Dikko, Ebaide Ojieabu and the others in our cohort became more than colleagues over those months. We became friends in the truest sense of the word. We coded together at odd hours when the building was quiet. We explained things to each other when the documentation made no sense. We celebrated each other’s small wins and talked each other through moments of real doubt.
Peer programming wasn’t just a technique we practised. It was how we survived. It was how we grew.
There is something deeply formative about learning alongside people who are going through exactly the same thing you are. You stop feeling alone in the struggle. You begin to celebrate each other’s breakthroughs as genuinely as your own. And slowly, without any single dramatic moment, you all become better engineers together.
Those friendships didn’t end with the Academy. They are woven into who I am as an engineer today.
Learning Ahead of the Curve
Before our internships officially began, we received word that Seamfix was transitioning parts of its technology stack toward NestJS. This was around the time the framework was gaining serious traction in the Node.js ecosystem, and it was clear that knowing it well would matter.
The four of us made a deliberate choice: we would learn NestJS on our own terms, ahead of schedule. We built APIs, explored the framework deeply, and had long conversations about architecture, dependency injection, and how to structure backends that could scale. We were not waiting to be told what to do. We were preparing to be genuinely useful.
That proactive mindset, more than any single technical skill, shaped how I have approached every stage of my career since then.
Real Products, Real Stakes
After completing the NextGen Academy and finishing our NYSC service, several of us were retained as interns. And then the real work began.
My first major exposure came through working on Seamfix products supporting MTN Nigeria. There is something that shifts in you the first time your code touches real users at real scale. This was no longer a training exercise. The systems were live, the stakes were genuine, and the responsibility felt different in a way I hadn’t expected. It was exciting and sobering in equal measure.
Later came opportunities connected to projects for NIMC and CIV, work that demanded an understanding of enterprise engineering, large-scale identity systems, and the kind of careful, deliberate thinking that only develops when you know that real people’s data and real business outcomes depend on what you are building.
Those experiences gave me something no classroom or tutorial could have provided: the knowledge of what it actually feels like to build software that matters.
From Circuits to Code
Looking back now, I sometimes think about that earlier version of myself sitting in engineering lectures, curious about software but without a clear path toward it. I think about the anxiety on the last day of camp, holding a sealed envelope and not knowing what was inside.
And I am grateful. Deeply, genuinely grateful.
Grateful to God, first and above all else, for ordering my steps in ways I never could have planned for myself. The path was not always visible from where I stood, but it was always being laid out ahead of me. That NYSC posting was not a coincidence. I see that clearly now.
Grateful to Seamfix for choosing to invest in young talent at a stage when many organisations simply wouldn’t have bothered. The NextGen Academy gave eight curious graduates a serious chance at something real. The skills I carry today as a backend engineer were shaped in that space. The ripple effects of that investment continue to show up in every system I build and every team I contribute to.
Grateful to the mentors and colleagues who gave their time freely, shared their knowledge honestly, and believed in our potential long before we fully believed in it ourselves.
And grateful to Tobi, Joshua, Hikmah, Ebaide, and every friend who made the journey feel like a shared adventure rather than a solitary grind through the unknown.
I came to Seamfix as an Electrical and Electronics Engineering graduate with a broad curiosity and very little practical coding experience. I have developed as a backend engineer who has built real products, solved real problems for real customers, and found a community that made me a better professional and, more importantly, a better person.
To anyone reading this who is standing at the beginning of their own uncertain journey: you don’t need to have it all figured out. Sometimes the most important step is simply showing up, staying faithful, and trusting that the right door will open when it is supposed to.
Mine opened in Lagos. It had the word Seamfix written on it.
