EP 22 — FOR REAL
Stephen Adeyemi
Senior software engineer who learned to code on library computers
SAMPLE PROFILE — FILM SLOT
His story is coming to the series soon.
Two-Hour Sessions
Stephen Adeyemi's family came to Houston from Lagos when he was nine, and money stayed tight the whole way up. College wasn't in the cards at eighteen. A shared apartment and a call center job were.
At nineteen he started teaching himself to code on public library computers, two hours at a time because that was the sign-up limit. Free tutorials, a used textbook, notebooks full of handwritten code he couldn't run until his next turn.
I learned to code in two-hour turns on a library computer. Broke isn't the same as stuck.
The Badge
The call center led to a help desk, and the help desk led to a junior developer job at a company willing to bet on a portfolio instead of a degree. In 2018 he took a senior engineering role at the University of Illinois Research Park and moved to Champaign.
Most Saturdays he runs a free coding club at the Douglass Branch Library on Grove Street. Kids get the good laptops and no time limit. He built the club to be the opposite of a two-hour session. That's the whole design.