Motherhood and Navigating a Career in Tech

Every good story has traces of resilience. This week, we feature Adenike Olatunbosun, a Women Techsters Fellow Class of 2023, as she walks us through her journey navigating a career change and how the Fellowship is helping her achieve her goal.

Adenike Olatunbosun grew up in Lagos, Nigeria as the last child of four children. She grew up without a father figure, and her mother worked hard to ensure that she and her siblings had a good life.

Like every young Nigerian child, Adenike wanted to become a medical doctor, but things didn’t precisely go as planned, and she ended up studying Microbiology at the Lagos State Polytechnic. After school, she worked as a Research Scientist. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she worked with the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Yaba, Lagos, collecting test samples in the fight against the virus.

However, things changed in December 2021 when she had her baby. She decided that, even though Motherhood was demanding, she didn’t want to sit idly at home. So, she started content creation fully, and that was where her tech journey started.

From then, Adenike started looking and applying for opportunities, which was when she came across the Women Techsters (WT) Program. When asked what influenced her choice of Product Management, Adenike stated that Product Management was love at first sight for her. “While I looked through the available learning tracks under the Women Techsters Fellowship, I was intrigued by Product Management. Since it was about managing products and people, I didn’t hesitate in my application.”

On speaking about handling Motherhood and transitioning to tech, Adenike explained that nothing had simultaneously excited and scared her. Although she was excited to have landed such an opportunity, its intensity frightened her a bit.

She explained that it all gets overwhelming sometimes and attributed her success to God, her family especially her husband- Mr Iyanuoluwa Olatunbosun, who has been such a strong support system, her facilitator, and the Women Techsters community. She mentioned how she had to sacrifice so much and put in extra hours to ensure that she met deadlines.

Speaking about her general learning experience, Adenike said, “Being in the Fellowship is an answer to prayer. I had gotten quite a good number of rejections before I started the WT Fellowship, so, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip through my hands. I have held on firmly to the training and am constantly reminding myself of what it took to get here. “

Adenike mentioned that what drives her is the desire to finish what she started; the Women Techsters Fellowship. She believes that finishing the Fellowship would put her in a better position to build a thriving career and provide her children with the best possible life. And we couldn’t agree more.