How GTBank Landed Me a Job

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My name is Rufus, not Roofie, Ruff-Ruff or Ruforce. You can call me ‘OluwaRufus’, ‘The Pope’ or ‘Fixer’ at Cregital. My role is majorly web development, providing tech support for building client websites, Cregital’s products and kicking users out of our internet in order to optimise its speed.

Sometime in 2013, my Boss back then informed us that we will be powering the bookstore section of a WordPress-based website with Guaranty Trust Bank’s payment gateway; GTPay. I can remember opening my system immediately in search of a WordPress plugin that will integrate GTPay with any of the two e-commerce plugins I was considering, but I couldn’t find anything relating to it on the Google nor WordPress plugin repository. Hope dashed, right?

I was left with the option of either telling my boss that we can’t build the store with WordPress and recommending we code the store from scratch or develop a plugin to do that. The former seemed easier to me… back then (I could conjure codes within hours with Adobe Dreamweaver), but I decided to go for the latter which was a challenge. This meant I had to learn WordPress plugin development & study how WooCommerce works before I could write a GTPay extension.

In about 3 days, I developed two plugins referencing WooCommerce and WordPress documentation. One didn’t work perfectly so I trashed it and fine tuned the other. Eureka! It worked! Version 1.0.0 ready. One morning a thought struck me, if I searched for such a plugin and couldn’t find it that means no one else has it yet and someone like me will soon search for it as well. So, why don’t I just put this online and market it? I took permission from my boss and bought my domain name so the world could have access to this plugin as well.

Later that year, Evans found my site and contacted me. He wanted to integrate GTPay on one of his client’s website. I generated an invoice for him. Yes, an invoice I was getting a little more corporate, because I was determined to become a full-time freelancer after school. I did the integration and that was it, version 1.0. A few months later towards the end of 2014, he started calling me for dev jobs including the development of my second plugin for Stanbic IBTC’s MyBluePay. I’ll name my price, I’ll get it done and he’ll pay. He mentioned one day that he had left his full time job at Konga and was looking to start a digital agency the following year and I told him to “remember me in his kingdom”; that was my job application. We continued to work very closely on a number of projects up until 2015 when he told me he was about to launch Cregital and would like to have me on board. I agreed and I have no regrets.

I got a job with Cregital simply because I encountered a problem and decided to provide a solution even when I had the choice of running away from it. You never can tell what will pave the way for you, neither can know for sure who will meet that would be the key that opens a door. Keep creating, keep challenging yourself and always be open to opportunities for growth.

Keep challenging yourself and always be open to opportunities for growth.

CLICK TO TWEET

That’s how /*Guaranty Trust Bank*/ gave me job at Cregital. Back to the matter #Coding

Originally posted here

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