This techie wanted to be a Doctor so bad but when he couldn’t get to study Medicine, he went to the studio and made music but now, he writes code. Here’s how Raphael Eyerin went from spitting bars to writing code.
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Tell me two interesting things about yourself.
Raphael: Ahh, how interesting am I? (laughs) Well, I always see the positive side of things instead of the negative. I also try to always be calm when everyone is hot so I can actually view things properly and try to resolve the issue.
Look at you being logical.
R: 🙂
So if I was speaking to you 5 years ago now, where do you think you would be? Do you think you would be doing what you are doing right now?
R: Five, Six years ago I was thinking I would be a Musician.
What!!! You wanted to do music?
R: Yes I wanted to do music. There were two things actually, I wanted to be a doctor and then I was also thinking I would build my own facebook.
Ah ahn! Look at you!
R: 😀 So yeah, those three actually. Mostly I wanted to be a doctor but I started music out of frustration because I could not get medicine.
Wait, I want to explore the Music superstar thing properly. So what were you singing?
R: Afrobeats. I even had tracks on different platforms and all.
Wow, so you went to the studio to start doing Odumodu Black!
R: 😀 😀 Yes oh, I recorded tracks.
So where are those tracks now? What changed?
R: You know music had not become what it is now during that time, this was 2013 if I remember. We were still putting songs on NotJustok.com. I did a couple. I used to rap. But it was affecting my grades. They were really bad so I just decided to focus on my education and while I was focusing on that, I found tech. From there, I started doing projects for fellow students in my department, Computer Science. I used to make more than the money I was collecting for shows.
How much was the first tech money you made?
R: Omo, the first money I made through tech was N5000. I did my friend’s final year project. I helped him to develop an application.
How was the tech journey like when you graduated from school? Walk me through it.
R: When I left school things were financially bad at home. An uncle of mine was a manager at a bank at the time, he wanted me to come work with him but I just knew that was not the kind of life I wanted. I wanted freedom. My parents were mad at me for rejecting the banking job. So I started freelancing for the first one year and was getting jobs of 50k, 70k. Some months I would get jobs and some months I won’t. I was building applications. I got a job in September of the same year, it was a remote job. Then the second and third were also remote. At that time I was doing three jobs at the same time but at a point, I lost all the jobs.
Whoa! What happened?
R: They didn’t have funding so they folded up. I got like two jobs after that; one of them was an international one and it exposed me to the foreign market. God has been good to me because I have never been really out of a job like that. I eventually dropped the Nigerian gig and just stuck to the international one.
How did you get all these Jobs though?
R: I am not going to lie to you, all the jobs I have gotten I have never submitted a CV. It’s all been based on recommendations and referrals. That’s why it’s important to build a network.
Good for you. What’s your role now, where do you work and what is it like?
R: I am a software engineer focused on building Bitcoin and Blockchain applications at Stakwork.
What’s your day to day like?
R: On a day to day, I write code, review codes and I do some meetings here and there.
I am curious, how did you learn how to build these applications?
R: I had this guy I met, his name was Saheed. He was a programmer. Before he came to school he was already programming and I was always amazed by what he does and I started picking interest in it. I am a very passionate person, when I see something I want to do, I go all out. So I asked him to teach me. With my pocket money, I will sometimes give Saheed to use for transport and I will trek to school. We quickly became good friends. Although I was learning myself, Saheed put me through every step of the way. And then when I came back to Lagos from Ogun State, I went to a programming school in Yaba called Tech Haven. Omo, when I got there, I realised I was very good.
Are you and Saheed still friends till today?
R: Yes oh, we are still friends. He’s doing well for himself as well.
Brilliant! Let’s talk work-life balance. How do you deal with striking that balance?
R: It’s not easy, especially when you work remotely. Sometimes I can spend 15 hours on a particular task and sometimes 8. But asides this, I find time to pursue my other passion, filmmaking. I produce movies.
Ah! You are also a film producer!
R: Yes, it’s also something I am passionate about so I decided to do it. I’ll get a screenwriter, then I edit the story and call some director friends, get some actors and boom, we shoot. It can take me up to four months to edit a script though but I still get it done. They are on YouTube by the way, for now. The channel is called LunaTVNG, we are looking to rebrand to LunaStudiosTV later this year.
Ah ah! Oshey! I think you are someone we need to watch out for in future.
R: Yes, watch out for me. I am coming big.
Haha. What is your favorite movie you have watched recently?
R: For me that will be Shogun. I recommend it!
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