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MuizOyebowale

Backend engineer. Reluctant perfectionist. Avid consumer of superhero films and bad dad jokes. Currently teaching myself to teach machines.

RoleBackend Engineer
Primary langPython / TS
AvailabilityOpen
Muiz Oyebowale

muizzyranking

[ 01 ]Origin

“I didn't pick engineering. Engineering picked me — and then I had a lot of questions about why.”

— me, being dramatic about it

It started with curiosity, the way most things do. I wanted to understand how things worked — not the surface, but the actual mechanism underneath. I started with C, which wasn't the most forgiving place to begin, but it taught me the fundamentals properly. The questions never really stopped.

Backend engineering felt like a natural home. I like the parts nobody sees — the performance work, the data modelling, the failure modes, the 3am alerts that teach you more about a system than a week of reading docs. If you did it right, nobody knows you were there.

Now I'm pointing the same obsession at AI and ML. Not because it's a trend — because I started pulling the thread and couldn't stop. The intersection of systems engineering and intelligence is the most interesting problem space I've encountered. I'm still early. I'm paying attention.

[ 02 ]How I think

Core operating principle

I ask why until it makes sense.

Not because I'm difficult. Because I genuinely cannot move forward until I understand the thing underneath the thing. The root cause. The actual reason a decision was made. The constraint that nobody documented but everyone assumed.

It makes me slower sometimes. It makes the work better, always. And once in a while, the why reveals that we're solving the wrong problem entirely — which is the most valuable discovery you can make before you've written any code.

// apologies in advance to my future Product Managers.

Working style

I listen — actually

Not the kind of listening where you're composing your reply. The kind where you catch the thing behind the thing they said. Details most people scroll past.

Slow to start, thorough to finish

I ask questions that feel annoying in the moment and save time in the long run. You want this person on your team before the architecture is decided, not after.

I write code for the next person

That person is often me, six months later. So: clear naming, honest comments, no clever tricks that only make sense at 2am.

Disagreement is a feature

I'll push back if something doesn't make sense. Respectfully. Persistently. I'll also change my mind the moment I see a better argument — ego doesn't survive good evidence.

[ 03 ]The journey

Not a career page. The actual story.

2021

HTML, then JavaScript

origin

Started with HTML, then wrote my first line of JavaScript. Things worked. I didn't know why. That bothered me more than it should have.

2022

ALX & C

foundations

Joined ALX (full-stack, leaned backend) and wrote my first line of C. It slowed me down in a good way — memory, pointers, and what the machine is actually doing. Also picked up Python around this time.

2022

Terminal era

tooling

Started writing Bash scripts and struggling with Vim. The first few weeks were… humbling. Eventually it clicked. Now it's home.

2023

First real users

production

Worked on a booking system people actually used. It broke once. I fixed it under pressure. Learned more in that moment than in months of building alone.

2024

Thinking in systems

systems

Started seeing things less as features and more as systems — APIs, background jobs, data flow, and failure modes.

2025

The AI thread

AI/ML

Started pulling on the LLM thread. One paper led to five more. Sleep schedule took a hit. Still worth it.

Now

Leaning into it

now

Focusing on AI/ML and MLOps. Building, writing, and figuring things out in public. Also learning Rust, because apparently I enjoy difficulty.

[ 04 ]What I'm learning

What I'm building toward

// updated May 2026

AI / LLMs

Building

Started with API wrappers, moved into prompt engineering, now reading papers on fine-tuning and RAG architectures. The more I learn, the more questions I have. This is a good sign.

Topics

  • ›LLM API integration (OpenAI, Anthropic)
  • ›Prompt engineering patterns
  • ›RAG architectures
  • ›Fine-tuning concepts
  • ›Embeddings & vector stores

Reading

— Attention Is All You Need

— The Illustrated Transformer

— Chip Huyen's ML Engineering

// currently: building things that embarrass future me

MLOps

Reading

Coming from a backend/infra background means the 'Ops' part of MLOps feels familiar. The 'ML' part is where I'm doing the work. Bridging the two is where it gets interesting.

Topics

  • ›ML pipeline design
  • ›Model versioning & registries
  • ›Experiment tracking (MLflow, W&B)
  • ›Model serving patterns
  • ›Data versioning (DVC)

Reading

— Designing ML Systems — Chip Huyen

— Made With ML

// the infra part I get. the model part: getting there.

Rust

Reading

I like Rust because it refuses to let you be sloppy. The borrow checker is a strict code reviewer who never takes a day off. I respect it. I also occasionally want to argue with it.

Topics

  • ›Ownership & borrowing
  • ›Error handling (Result, Option)
  • ›Traits & generics
  • ›Async Rust (tokio)
  • ›CLI tooling with clap

Reading

— The Rust Book

— Rust by Practice

— Error Handling in Rust

// current status: the borrow checker and I have an understanding

[ 05 ]The human side

Not just a résumé

Watching

Marvel. DC. Animations. Sci-fi. Any superhero film that exists.

I watch everything — live action, animated, sequels that probably shouldn't exist. I have opinions about which Spider-Man was objectively the best. They are correct.

MCUDCEUInto the Spider-VerseArcaneInvincibleStudio Ghibli

Editor of choice

Neovim

Still. :wq survivor.
Config: I'm done this time, I promise.
Regrets: zero.

$ nvim .
# home. sweet. home.

Free sample

“Hold on, while I think of a good one...”

// there are more where that came from.
// you have been warned.

Good conversation topics

I'm bad at small talk. I'm very good at the kind of conversation that starts with “wait, but why does that work?” and ends ninety minutes later with everyone slightly smarter.

Distributed systemsHistory of computingHow things failWhy anything works at allThe philosophy of debuggingBad dad jokes

[ 06 ]What's next

If you got here, you read enough.

Three doors. Pick one.

[ 01 ] The work

Projects that shipped.

Things I built. The interesting decisions behind them.

all projects→

[ 02 ] The toolbox

What I reach for.

Languages, tools, the setup that survives a fresh install.

the toolbox→

[ 03 ] Say hi

Backend roles. AI/ML work. Interesting problems.

Bonus points if it doesn't start with “circling back.”

email me→·résumé ↓