# Pleasant Balogun - Engineering Manager · 2 exits · UK Global Talent 🇬🇧
Source: https://hello.cv/pleasantbalogun
London | England | https://pleasantbalogun.cv

## Links
- GitHub | https://github.com/pleasantbalogun
- LinkedIn | https://ng.linkedin.com/in/balogunpleasant
- website | https://pleasantbalogun.cv
- X | https://x.com/balogunpleasant
- Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/pleasantbalogun

## About
Two acquisitions before 21. I build AI native products end to end, research to shipped, with the design quality most AI products skip.

At Hello.cv I ship agentic products. I built the RAG matching engine that runs underneath them, taking it from zero to production in about four weeks. It now handles 57,000+ user interactions.

Before that: Buck CLI, an open source dev tool with 100,570 PyPI downloads, acquired by Onboardbase. Scrim, global payments for Gen Z, acquired by Chimoney. Zeddpay, valued at $1.6M when I was 16.

I care about craft. Design is a first class concern, not a finishing layer, and I am allergic to AI slop. If it does not feel considered, it is not done.

London. UK Global Talent visa, no sponsorship needed, available immediately.

Open to founding engineer and staff roles at AI companies building things that have to actually work. Also: I have a dog named Mowa 🐕

## Work
### Creator | mowa
https://mowa.dev/
Built mowa, a tool that lets non-technical teammates suggest and manage AI prompt changes through a review workflow — without touching code.
### Engineering Manager | Hello.cv
https://hello.cv
Ship agentic AI products. Built the RAG job matching engine that runs underneath them.
- Designed and shipped the AI job matching engine end to end, zero to production in about four weeks. RAG pipeline with separate job and resume indexes, hybrid retrieval combining sparse keyword search and dense vector similarity, and a post matching reranker that grounds every recommendation against the candidate's resume and explains the match.
- 57,000+ user interactions processed across job search, AI recommendations, CV uploads and applications submitted through the Chrome and Firefox extensions.
- Number 1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt, 10 July 2025. 520+ upvotes, 90+ comments.
- Ship agentic products: orchestration, tool calling, evals, and the reliability work that makes agents trustworthy in production.
- Architected Profile Host v1, replacing a legacy stylesheet system with a full Liquid templating engine, plus a line based diff engine with optimistic locking for safe concurrent edits.
- Stack: React, Laravel and PostgreSQL, Python recommendation engine, AWS with Redis caching, Chrome and Firefox extensions.
### Co-founder & Lead Engineer | Drip
https://apps.apple.com/ng/app/drip-your-closet-app/id6478542260
AI closet app on the App Store. Co-founded with Nargiz Kudaibergenova (New York); I led all engineering from Lagos.
- Engineered DripLens — a computer-vision pipeline built on Meta's Segment Anything, one of the earliest production implementations of SAM in fashion tech. Multi-stage: SAM isolates garments, vision models identify type, colour, pattern and seasonality, transformers handle outfit compatibility and style matching.
- Trained it to handle culturally specific garments — agbada and kaftans recognised as accurately as Western staples, which required custom training data and fine-tuning most fashion models never see.
- 1,619 users across Nigeria, the US and the UK. 1,240+ GitHub contributions across the repo in 2024.
- Full stack solo: SwiftUI mobile, Java microservices for the REST API, Python AI pipeline.
- Independently reviewed by Pulse Nigeria — a four-month editorial user review, June 2025.
### Lead | aeroseeds.io
https://aeroseeds.io
Leading efforts to restore Africa's food security by building drones to automate reforestation and stop blind flying.
- Building drones to automate reforestation
- Working to restore Africa's food security and stop blind flying
### Software Engineer | BuildQL (formerly LearnChameleon)
https://buildql.com
Developed an AI-powered educational platform, contributing to innovative learning solutions for a UK-based startup.
- Engineered core components of an AI educational platform, enhancing learning experiences through intelligent features and personalized content.
- Collaborated remotely with a UK-based startup, delivering key functionalities for a transformative educational product.
- Applied advanced software engineering principles to build scalable and user-friendly educational tools, improving accessibility.
### Software Engineer — LATAM Payments | Chimoney
https://chimoney.io
Joined after Chimoney acquired Scrim. Built payment infrastructure for Chimoney's expansion into Latin America.
- Built the Mexican market expansion: client-side CLABE validation for 18-digit bank identifiers, SPEI integration (Mexico's real-time interbank payment system), and Spanish localisation across the product.
- Work presented at Interledger Summit Mexico by Chimoney's CEO and PM — "Chimoney's ILP Stack & App Updates", January 2025.
- Demonstrated the live integration to Tkambio USA LLC, Chimoney's US partner — full SPEI flow funding a Mexican wallet via CLABE in real time.
- Led the launch of the Chimoney mobile app. The LATAM product is live on the App Store in Mexico.
- Authored the technical write-up published on the Chimoney company blog.
### Developer Relations Engineer | Onboardbase.com
https://onboardbase.com
Engaged in developer relations activities, leveraging expertise from the acquired Buck CLI tool to foster community and support product adoption.
- Advocated for developer community needs, contributing to product improvements and enhanced user satisfaction for the SaaS platform.
- Provided technical guidance and support, ensuring effective utilization of Onboardbase's SaaS offerings and developer tools.
- Leveraged deep understanding of the Buck CLI to bridge communication between product and developer communities, post-acquisition.
### Founder & Lead Developer | Scrim (Acquired by Chimoney.io)
https://chimoney.io/blogs/chimoney-acquires-scrim-app-global-payments-infrastructure-for-gen-z/
Conceptualized, built, and launched Scrim, an innovative platform simplifying online money transfers, which was subsequently acquired by a Canadian fintech company.
- Developed a seamless global payment infrastructure, enabling users to send money via email, Twitter, or phone number.
- Achieved acquisition by Chimoney.io in 2023, validating technological innovation and market potential for the platform.
- Garnered significant media attention, featured in 'The Nation Newspaper' and 'Tribune Online' for disrupting fintech payments.
### Founder & CEO | Zeddpay
https://tracxn.com/d/companies/zeddpay/__VC4uSIAqMZOSBZ4c3fFsRJHlc89VgXKsWIx6jjsRAeU
Airtime-to-cash marketplace for underbanked Nigerian youth — millions have no bank account, but everyone has airtime.
- Backed by Nat Friedman, then CEO of GitHub, who reached out unprompted before the round.
- Raised $61,000 on a SAFE at a $1.6M cap — five months after incorporating. Delaware C-corp.
- 2,000+ registered users and merchants trading airtime for cash. MTN, Airtel, Glo, 9mobile.
- Built it myself: 450+ commits, Python/Django backend, React frontend. Mobile-first for low-data environments.
- I was 16.
### Creator | Buck CLI (acquired by Onboardbase)
https://pepy.tech/projects/buck
Open-source developer tool for managing environment secrets and project scaffolding. Built it because scaffolding new projects kept wasting my time.
- 100,570 PyPI downloads, organic — driven by word of mouth, GitHub stars and developer community discussion, not marketing.
- Won the 2021 HackerNoon Noonies "Contributor of the Year — Developer Tools" with 1,119 community votes. The runner-up had 263. Voted entirely by developers.
- Cross-platform CLI for project scaffolding, template management, config generation and dev environment setup — Windows, Mac and Linux.
- Solely maintained under "Pleasanttech" through October 2021. Adopted by Onboardbase (Techstars-backed) in January 2022, two months after the award.
- I was 16 when it won.

## Publications
### Pleasant Balogun: The Teenage Prodigy Revolutionizing FinTech in Nigeria
thestudententrepreneur.org | https://thestudententrepreneur.org/?p=9962
A profile detailing Pleasant Balogun's early entrepreneurial success and profound impact within the Nigerian FinTech sector.
### Uchi Uchibeke, Pleasant Balogun reimagining FinTech in Nigeria
Tribune Online | https://tribuneonlineng.com/uchi-uchibeke-pleasant-balogun-reimagining-fintech-in-nigeria/
A feature piece on the significant contributions of Pleasant Balogun and co-founder to the evolving FinTech landscape in Nigeria.
### How Nigerian teen's app caught the eye of Canadian FinTech
The Nation Newspaper | https://thenationonlineng.net/how-nigerian-teens-app-caught-the-eye-of-canadian-fintech/amp/
An article highlighting the acquisition of Scrim by a Canadian FinTech firm and the innovative work of its teenage founder, Pleasant Balogun.
### Developer Contributor of the Year
Hackernoon | https://noonies.hackernoon.com/award/2021-hackernoon-contributor-of-the-year-developer-tools
Won an award in 2021.

## Skills
### Software Development
- Full Stack Development
- Mobile Development (iOS, Android)
- CLI Tools
- AI/ML Development
- Web Development
- Backend Development
- Frontend Development
- API Design
- Scalable Systems
- Python
- JavaScript
- Node.js
- React
- Swift
- Kotlin
### Entrepreneurship & Product Management
- Product Strategy
- Market Research
- User Acquisition
- Business Development
- Startup Leadership
- Team Leadership
- Venture Acquisition
- Financial Technology (FinTech)
- Fashion Technology
- Go-to-Market Strategy
### Cloud & DevOps
- Cloud Platforms (AWS, GCP)
- CI/CD Pipelines
- Deployment
- System Architecture
- Containerization (Docker)
### Data & Databases
- SQL
- NoSQL
- Data Modeling
- Database Management
### Developer Relations
- Community Engagement
- Technical Advocacy
- Product Feedback
- Developer Support

## Projects
### Mowa
https://mowa.dev
Prompt management platform that lets non-technical teammates suggest, review, and ship AI prompt changes through a versioned workflow — without touching code.
### Pawavox
https://pawavox.com
Voice first customer feedback for businesses. Customers record instead of typing, and AI handles transcription, translation and sentiment analysis across multiple languages. Multi tenant SaaS, in early production across client deployments.
### ChopDex
https://chopdex.com
Nigeria's prediction market. Bet on sports, politics and entertainment with automated market making, so there is always liquidity and no waiting for a counterparty. Sole developer.
### Aeroseeds
https://aeroseeds.io
Drone-powered reforestation and precision agriculture for African food sovereignty — automating seed dispersal and crop-health monitoring with geospatial AI.
### Zobo
https://zobo.cash
Crypto payments infrastructure. Users earn USDC for completing social media tasks, paid instantly, no bank account needed. Sole developer.
### Drip
https://apps.apple.com/ng/app/drip-your-closet-app/id6478542260
A closet in your pocket — iOS app for closet management, outfit styling, and fashion community. Built and shipped end-to-end as founder and lead engineer.
### Hello.cv
https://hello.cv
The AI-native career platform where your profile works for you. As Engineering Manager I lead the team behind The Mesh, the agentic platform that finds opportunities, applies, and escalates only when it needs you.
### Scrim
https://chimoney.io/blogs/chimoney-acquires-scrim-app-global-payments-infrastructure-for-gen-z/
Global payments infrastructure for Gen Z — send money via email, Twitter handle, or phone number. Acquired by Chimoney in 2023; covered by The Nation and Tribune Online.
### Buck CLI
https://pepy.tech/projects/buck
Open-source CLI that streamlined developer workflows — 100,000+ PyPI downloads, 2021 HackerNoon Noonies award, acquired by Onboardbase in 2022.

## Languages
- English | Native

## Services
### AI Product Strategy & Development Consultation
USD | 1050 | 3 hours
I will help you strategize and develop innovative AI-powered features for your product. We'll map out core AI functionalities. I'll guide you through scalable architecture decisions. You will receive a clear roadmap for AI integration.
### Launch and Scale Your Fintech Product
USD | 6300 | 1 week
I will guide you through the process of launching and scaling your fintech product for global impact. We will define your product strategy and go-to-market plan. You will get a framework for user acquisition and retention. I will help you plan for global payment functionalities.
### Mobile App Development & Strategy (iOS/Android)
USD | 11900 | 2 weeks
I will help you plan and architect a compelling mobile application for iOS and Android platforms. We'll define your app's core features and user experience. You'll receive guidance on scalable backend integration. I will provide a clear development roadmap from concept to launch.
### Building & Distributing Impactful CLI Tools
USD | 3150 | 3 days
I will help you design, engineer, and distribute a highly effective command-line interface (CLI) tool for your target users. We'll define your tool's core functionalities and user experience. I will guide you on best practices for widespread adoption. You'll get a clear strategy for distribution and community engagement.
### Startup Acquisition Readiness Advisory
USD | 1400 | 4 hours
I will help you prepare your startup for a successful acquisition, leveraging my experience from two successful exits. We'll identify key areas for strengthening your product and operations. You will understand the due diligence process. I will help you craft a compelling acquisition narrative.
### Mentorship for Young Tech Entrepreneurs
USD | 1500 | 6 weeks
I will share the exact strategies I used to found, lead, and successfully exit multiple tech ventures by age 20. Learn how to identify market opportunities and build a compelling product. Get guidance on user acquisition, team building, and strategic partnerships. I will provide a clear roadmap for your entrepreneurial journey.
### Developer Relations Career Path Coaching
USD | 600 | 3 weeks
I will guide you through building a successful career in Developer Relations (DevRel) and becoming an effective technical advocate. Learn how to engage developer communities and gather valuable product feedback. We'll practice technical communication and advocacy strategies. You'll get a personalized roadmap for securing and excelling in DevRel roles.

## Source
Read this profile on Hello.cv: https://hello.cv/pleasantbalogun
Create your free profile at https://hello.cv