“I build code and I build people, because the future needs both.”
That’s how Rufai Mustapha explains his mission. In one sentence, it captures the two tracks of his career: building systems as a software engineer, and giving back through teaching and mentorship.
From startups to systems
Mustapha’s journey began in Nigeria’s fast-moving startup scene, where engineers often had to be more than just coders. At a web hosting service, he designed and built websites while writing documentation for in-house tools. At a digital media outfit, he managed projects and pitched products to clients.
Later, at a film-streaming service often described as “Netflix for renting Nigerian movies,” he built and improved the core Laravel platform, configured infrastructure on Digital Ocean, and kept cross-functional teams aligned.
For him, these years were not just about learning new frameworks or delivering features. They were about understanding how software becomes a product people can trust.
“It taught me to think like a builder, not just a programmer,” he says.
Mentorship as giving back
Even while building systems, Mustapha felt the pull of teaching. At a pan-African training company, he guided more than 2,000 students into careers in web and Android development.
His team’s resources were so effective they were later adopted by a Nigerian state government. At another academy, he designed programs that boosted graduate hire rates by 10 percent.
In 2022, his dedication to giving back was recognized when Google selected him as a mentor for the Africa Developer Scholarship supported by Andela. Over several months, he worked with learners across Africa, helping them navigate difficult concepts in web and Android tracks.
Some of his mentees landed their first jobs in fintech and mobile development. “The best part is getting that message that says, ‘I got the job,’” he recalls. “It reminded me that mentorship is as important as code.”
Teaching at scale
Mentorship soon extended into classrooms far beyond Lagos. In the UK, Mustapha trained women breaking into tech. In Germany, he mentored migrants rebuilding careers in a new country.
On global platforms like LinkedIn Learning and Pluralsight, his courses have reached thousands. On freeCodeCamp, his tutorials on React and SVG mapping have been read by tens of thousands across continents.
For him, teaching is not about broadcasting knowledge but about breaking down complexity. “I want people to see that they can build too,” he says.
Speaking for ecosystems
His engineering background also pushed him into advocacy roles. At one of Africa’s leading payments companies, he overhauled API documentation and demo guides used by over 10,000 developers and merchants.
He has since spoken at more than 50 conferences across Africa and Europe, reaching thousands of developers with talks that mix live code, strategy, and storytelling.
At Write the Docs Prague, he delivered a message that resonated deeply: African startups cannot afford to ignore documentation. “Good documentation is not a luxury,” Rufai Mustapha said. “It drives adoption, it convinces investors, and it keeps ecosystems alive.”
Building communities
Beyond code and classrooms, Rufai Mustapha invests in building ecosystems. He co-hosts the EMEA chapter of Write the Docs, creating space for African engineers and writers to connect with their global peers.
He also leads Open Source Community Africa, a collective that encourages contributions from African developers to global projects.
The mission ahead
From coding startups in Lagos to mentoring through Google’s continent-wide program, from publishing courses on LinkedIn Learning and Pluralsight to speaking on world stages, Rufai Mustapha’s story keeps circling back to the same mission.
“I started out wanting to build software,” he says. “Now I see that the real measure of what I build is the people who grow because of it.”
Code is what he builds. People are why he builds.
