There is a generation building the future differently. They grew up with the internet, learned from people they had never met, found communities online and discovered that you no longer need permission to start creating.
Fawaz Ogunleye is part of that generation. A young developer coming up in Nigeria, he represents a growing class of self-taught and digitally native builders who are learning, experimenting and trying to turn their skills into something meaningful.
In this conversation, HenryB sits down with Fawaz to explore what it means to build a career in technology from Nigeria, the realities of becoming a software developer, the pressure young people face to succeed quickly, the overwhelming pace of artificial intelligence and what happens when ambition meets the limitations of the environment around you.
Building the Future Through Technology
HenryB: You are part of a generation that seems to have a very different relationship with work and technology. How did you get into development in the first place?
Fawaz: I think curiosity had a lot to do with it. I was always interested in understanding how things worked, but technology made that curiosity practical. You could have an idea and actually build something with it. The more I learned, the more I realised that I didn’t need to wait for someone to give me permission to start creating.
HenryB: There is a lot of pressure on young people today to “make it” very quickly. Social media makes it look like everyone is building companies, making money and living their best life at twenty-two. How do you deal with that?
Fawaz: You have to remind yourself that you are seeing the outcome and not the process. The internet compresses everybody’s timeline into one feed. Someone is announcing a million-dollar company, someone else is getting a new job, another person is travelling, and suddenly you feel like you’re behind. But everybody is moving at a different pace. I’m learning to focus more on becoming better than on looking successful.
HenryB: Do you think being a developer in Nigeria gives you an advantage or puts you at a disadvantage?
Fawaz: Honestly, both. There are obvious disadvantages: infrastructure, access to capital, unreliable systems and sometimes just the difficulty of trying to build while dealing with everyday realities. But there is also an advantage. You learn to improvise. You learn to solve problems with limited resources. And Nigeria gives you problems that are worth solving. If you can build something that works here, you are often solving problems that exist at a much larger scale.
Learning, Building and Starting
HenryB: There is also this idea that technology has lowered the barrier to entry. Do you think young people actually understand how much opportunity exists now?
Fawaz: Some do, but I think we still underestimate it. You can learn almost anything now. You can find documentation, courses, communities, open-source projects and people who are willing to share what they know. But access to information is not the same thing as developing the discipline to use it. That’s where a lot of people struggle. They keep learning but don’t build. At some point, you have to stop consuming and start making things.
HenryB: That’s an interesting distinction. Learning versus building. When did you realise that?
Fawaz: When I noticed I could spend weeks watching tutorials and still not feel like I was actually becoming a software developer. Eventually you have to get uncomfortable. Build something. Break it. Fix it. Read documentation. Google things. Ask questions. Start again. That’s where the real learning happens.
HenryB: What do you think young developers get wrong most often?
Fawaz: Trying to learn everything at once. You see React, Next.js, TypeScript, AI, blockchain, mobile development, DevOps, cybersecurity, everything looks important. So you jump around. I think it’s better to pick something, get genuinely good at it and then expand. You don’t need to know everything to create something useful.
AI and the New Way of Building
HenryB: We can’t really talk about becoming a software developer today without talking about AI. There is so much happening so quickly that I imagine it can be overwhelming. Do you ever feel like you’re trying to keep up with a moving target?
Fawaz: All the time. I think that’s probably one of the most overwhelming parts of being a developer right now. You wake up and there’s a new model, a new tool, a new framework or somebody saying that the way you have been building software is already outdated. If you try to keep up with everything, you will burn yourself out.
HenryB: So how do you think about AI without getting consumed by all of it?
Fawaz: I try to remember that I’m a builder first. AI is a tool. A really powerful one, but still a tool. I don’t need to know every model that comes out or use every new AI product. I need to know what I’m trying to build and then figure out where AI can help me get there faster.
HenryB: That’s an interesting distinction. You’re not necessarily competing with AI. You’re using it to increase what you can do.
Fawaz: Exactly. If I’m building something and AI can help me understand documentation faster, write a piece of code, debug something, generate ideas or help me get through a problem I would have spent hours stuck on, why wouldn’t I use it? The goal is still the product. The tool just makes the journey faster.
HenryB: But do you think there’s a danger of becoming too dependent on it?
Fawaz: Definitely. You still need to understand what you’re building. If AI writes everything for you and you can’t explain why the code works, you’ve created another problem. I think the best builders will be the ones who understand the fundamentals and know how to use AI to extend their capabilities rather than replace their thinking.
HenryB: So the advantage isn’t necessarily knowing AI better than everyone else?
Fawaz: I think the advantage is knowing how to use it well. A builder who can take an idea, use AI to move faster, understand the output, make decisions and actually ship something is going to be incredibly productive. You don’t have to romanticise doing everything manually. If a tool can help you get from idea to execution faster, use the tool.
HenryB: And perhaps that’s the mindset young developers need — less anxiety about keeping up with every development and more focus on actually building.
Fawaz: Exactly. Because at the end of the day, builders build. Technology will keep changing. There will always be another model, another framework and another tool. You can’t build your entire identity around keeping up with the latest thing. You have to know what you’re trying to create and use whatever helps you create it better.
Building Beyond Yourself
HenryB: And where do you want all of this to take you?
Fawaz: I don’t think I have one perfectly defined destination yet. I know I want to build. I want to create products that people actually use, solve problems that matter and eventually build things that are bigger than just me writing code. For now, I’m focused on getting better and putting myself in situations where I can keep learning.
HenryB: Do you think young software developers sometimes put too much pressure on themselves to have everything figured out?
Fawaz: Definitely. I think there’s this expectation that by a certain age you should already know exactly what you’re doing. But technology itself changes too quickly for that mindset to make sense. You can have a direction without having the entire map. I’d rather know that I want to build meaningful things and figure out the exact form as I grow.
HenryB: What does “building something meaningful” actually mean to you?
Fawaz: It means solving a real problem for real people. It doesn’t necessarily have to be some huge company or revolutionary technology. If you build something that makes someone’s work easier, saves someone time or gives someone access to something they didn’t have before, that’s meaningful. Scale is important eventually, but usefulness comes first.
HenryB: So perhaps the real advantage of your generation isn’t that you know more technology. It’s that you have access to tools that previous generations simply didn’t have.
Fawaz: Exactly. We have access to an insane amount of information and incredibly powerful tools. But having access isn’t enough. You still have to decide what you’re going to do with it.
HenryB: And that’s probably the harder part.
Fawaz: Yeah. The tools are becoming easier. Deciding what is worth building is still hard.
The Future Belongs to Builders
There is something refreshing about speaking to someone who is still becoming.
Not someone presenting a finished success story, but someone actively figuring things out.
Fawaz represents a generation learning to build in an environment where the tools are changing almost as quickly as the ideas themselves.
AI has made that environment more exciting, but also more overwhelming. The pressure to understand every new model, framework and tool can easily become another form of distraction.
But perhaps the answer is simpler than that.
Builders build.
The tools will change. The models will improve. The technology will continue moving.
The job is not to chase every new thing.
It is to know what you want to create, understand the fundamentals well enough to make good decisions, and use whatever tools are available to get there faster.
For Fawaz, that seems to be the point.
AI does not have to replace the builder. It can simply make the builder capable of more.
And maybe that’s what happens when a generation stops waiting for permission to create: they don’t wait for the perfect tools.
They use the tools they have and build anyway.
