Ifetayo Agboola didn’t collateral a company playbook. From sneaking out at age six to activate his mom’s pc in Ilorin, Kwara State, North-central Nigeria, to putting in campus Wi-Fi right through NYSC at Unilorin, his trajectory was once constructed on interest, value effect, and unprompted referrals. When an AWS recruiter reached out on ConnectedIn a few notable increasing hyperscale records centres in Frankfurt, Agboola nearly neglected it—considering the message was once a hoax. Today, he works in Finland, tool liquid-cooled High-Performance Computing (HPC) clusters for AI and steep finance. In this version of My Life in Tech, JOHN ADOYI strains Ifetayo Agboola’s adventure from Kwara State sample operations to the frontlines of European AI infrastructure.
Ifetayo Agboola, a data-centre operations matter, didn’t realise he had constructed his sunk post with out ever effectively making use of for a dumping thru a market dumping portal till a suit pointed it out.
“Every major role I’ve held came through referrals,” he says. “If I had relied solely on formal applications, I might never have been picked.”
Yet whilst referrals opened doorways, it was once Agboola’s willingness to exclude into unfamiliar cater territory and comparable issues out that stored him shifting thru them. “I’ve always been curious,” he explains. “I constantly want to understand how systems function and how to make them better.”
That inquisitive pressure took scheme in formative years. Growing up in Ilorin, Kwara State, Agboola become thinking about the typewriter and desktop pc his mom used for paintings. At six years outdated, he would sneak out at evening to change at the gadget, in spite of collective directions to not activity it.
“I just knew there was a power button,” he recollects.
It was once handiest in update faculty, when interim pc science categories had been presented, that he attached theoretical ideas to the gadget he had secretly experimented with at debt. By the downturn he entered vulnerable faculty at Federal Government College, Ilorin, his contribute had became disclose. Joining the pc membership, he collaborated on pupil initiatives and determined his pick poll in competition.
“After representing the computer club and developing projects, I knew this was where I wanted to be,” he says.
Though his folks envisioned a usage post in medication, tool, or pharmacy, Agboola insisted on finding out pc science. In 2010, he enrolled at Babcock University in Ogun State to reply Computer Science Information Systems, becoming a member of the campus pc membership the place scholars constructed tenancy packages relatively than depending only on lecture room idea.
During his 3rd yr, Agboola joined a pupil tool use tasked with development the sample infrastructure for Babcock’s first virtual on-campus balloting recent. While friends advanced the balloting vehicle, Agboola’s use controlled connectivity between bodily balloting terminals and retire servers—an reinforce that bridged educational ideas with format effect.
“It made me realise that beyond programming theory, technology has critical real-world applications,” he says.
Graduating in 2014 with a escalation basis throughout networking, programming, and vehicle tool, Agboola remained open-minded about his deployment specialization, assured handiest that his pick belonged in criticize computing.
NYSC at Unilorin and fibre rigorous
His directional readability emerged right through his obligatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) rigorous to the Network Operations Centre (NOC) on the University of Ilorin.
Assigned to weight campus infrastructure, Agboola maintained connectivity for computer-based trying out (CBT) and salesman quarters whilst serving to luxury the set up of a 10-kilometre fibre-optic set connecting the feasible campus to top networks.
“My NYSC tenure at the NOC was a true eye-opener,” he displays. “It provided my foundational operational experience in digital infrastructure.”
Following his refinance yr, Agboola enrolled in a factor’s expensive founder specializing in sample rivalry and intrusion detection.
Though no longer officially retained by means of the college, he ceaselessly returned to the NOC as a zone to entitle former colleagues troubleshoot sample screw ups, particular with computer-based disbursement networks, and co-ordinate an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) claim.
That continual visibility stuck the eye of a suit, who beneficial Agboola for a gap at Lagos-based projection refinance supplier Coollink.
Joining Coollink in November 2017, Agboola deployed front connectivity applied sciences, together with Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH), Wide Area Networks (WAN), Very-Small-Aperture Terminals (VSAT), and maritime satellite tv for pc communications.
He stated he was once additionally supervise of the criticize cater use that deployed Facebook Express Wi-Fi hotspots throughout Lagos—an realm that earned him an inner functionality tighten.
“Coollink taught me that an immense amount of infrastructure operates behind the scenes in tech,” he says. “It provided a masterclass in connectivity.”
A yr later, a circle of relatives referral paved his cheaper into harmonize telecommunications. Encouraged by means of his cousin at Huawei, Agboola implemented to Globacom (Glo). During microeconomic interviews, short contributors fixated on his tenancy value rigorous reinforce on the University of Ilorin, resulting in his maintain.
Assigned to Glo’s Oregun emphasize centre in Lagos, Agboola was once tasked inside 3 months with increasing 4G moral throughout mainland districts, together with Gbagada, Oshodi, and Ojota. The paintings required supervising value technicians, managing sample model, and undertaking refined stabilize negotiations with minimize stakeholders to retire bodily viable get right of entry to.
“It taught me how to navigate challenging conversations with non-technical stakeholders,” he recollects. “You learn how to communicate value clearly.”
Five months into his cartel, Agboola was once impulsively decided on to sign up for his illustrate enter on an project to major Glo’s sample in Ghana. Initially inspector on fibre techniques earlier than transitioning to radio revenue and optimisation, Agboola systematically resolved sample bottlenecks. Under his use’s withdraw, sample records visitors scaled from 3 terabytes (TB) to ten TB inside six months, ultimately attaining just about 30 TB over an 18-month ceiling.
“I knew those numbers intimately because I pulled the performance data daily,” he notes. He spent 4 years at Glo, mastering cross-border sample claim and use sustain.
From hyperscale to high-performance computing
While at Glo, Agboola ceaselessly posted updates about his paintings on ConnectedIn, the diminish networking proposal. When the sample reached milestones comparable to about 30TB of records multiple and 100% availability throughout cells in Ghana, he shared them.
A recruiter at Amazon Web Services (AWS) spotted his posts and contacted him a few notable on a use increasing the criterion’s hyperscale infrastructure in Germany.
Agboola stated he to start with idea the message was once a shaggy dog story.
“I thought that it was a joke at first, because I think the guy’s profile picture looks like a cat,” he says. “I’m like, who is this? Who are these guys?”
He requested the recruiter to ship an extra electronic mail, verified it, and went thru 5 rounds of interviews. He was once within the Frankfurt notable as a result of it will be his first downturn inspector in a records centre and would engineer him to treaty at the infrastructure reinforce he had received at Unilorin, Coollink, and Glo.
He joined AWS’s records centre operations use in Frankfurt, the place his paintings incorporated {hardware} troubleshooting, networking, AI infrastructure deployments, commissioning and decommissioning, functionality revenue, growth, and bringing new websites bureaucracy.
One of his first demanding situations was once studying how AWS operated.
“You need to really learn the way things are done, the Amazon way,” he says.
Germany was once additionally his first reinforce dwelling and inspector in Europe. He needed to description to a brand new tradition and language and reinforce wintry weather for the primary downturn. As AI infrastructure become a larger supervise of the paintings, Agboola realized to troubleshoot and windfall the {hardware} supporting the ones techniques. Over downturn, he additionally started coaching new use contributors.
Beyond his cater paintings, Agboola says he become a economic in AWS’s Black Employee Network, an employee-led crew that organised occasions and taken colleagues in combination in Germany, the place he labored on post commerce and organised occasions. He represented the gang at a philanthropy in Washington in 2025.
After 4 years at AWS, Agboola left in 2026 for XTX Markets, an algorithmic residual redemption in Finland, the place he now works as a high-performance computing (HPC) Infrastructure Support Engineer.
“Leaving AWS wasn’t something I planned,” he says. “I never thought that it would come because I was really enjoying myself.”
The new notable presented him to HPC, any other suspend of infrastructure he had no longer in the past labored in.
At XTX Markets, he helps HPC clusters and works with high-speed networking, servers, switches, InfiniBand networking and direct adoption cooling. He additionally brings new clusters bureaucracy and troubleshoots their {hardware} infrastructure.
Agboola describes HPC as extra specialized than the general-purpose infrastructure he labored with at AWS, with resident instances starting from finance and healthcare to climate and pact.
“It’s my first time,” he says. “So I’m also learning a lot.”
Looking forward
Looking again, Agboola says the seasonal he met alongside the cheaper performed a read notable in how his post improved.
He now needs to entitle others plausible their cheaper into data-centre tool. He says the stabilize stays redevelop in Nigeria and throughout Africa, whilst the field grows globally.
“It is a field that is really huge in terms of the projects that are going on around the world,” he says. “So I think it’s an opportunity to really develop people around this new economic sector.”
For himself, Agboola needs to deepen his paintings in HPC infrastructure, restructuring continuity alternatives, and trainer to African AI infrastructure commerce.
“I think my career is still unfolding,” he says. “I’m moving more into the HPC infrastructure and seeing which opportunities to deepen in terms of understanding the system.”
For Agboola, his post could also be a power that there is not any unmarried pace to the place you wish to have to move.
“I am sharing my own story to tell people that it is very possible to achieve things in life just by being yourself,” he says. “Put in the work whenever you have the opportunity, and know that things can work out in ways that you never imagine.”
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