Life of a Self Taught Programmer and Founder in Nigeria
<p>I came here to rant, though the title may sound like a blog of "a day in the life of a dev at meta", but this is real life. No kombucha, no $4K standing desk, no ping pong table in the hallway. This is Nigeria. Power just blinked twice. I held my head in utter disbelief, all I did was try to start my development server, wait don't just stop reading yet, this isn't some technical blog so any technical thing I say, I'll make it crystal clear in layman terms. Development server is where I run the website I'm building locally, to test it to get a visual feedback before hosting it on the cloud. Imagine where you're trying to test something before hitting send, is taking 20 minutes to load, a sane machine is supposed to be using less than 10 seconds to do this I'm here typing on two cents directly, my local host is still loading. </p><p>I am the life blood of my product, look I'm not outsourcing this idea, I'm gonna Mark Zuckerberg this product. I'm not hiring no intern to build my product. The design, the management, the code, all me brick by brick. I'm running backend (logic behind what the app does), containerization (makes sure our app is light weight and works across all machines), design (use of design tools like figma to actually design things).. other boring stuff you probably wouldn't care about. I’m pushing Figma frames till my eyes blur, designing entire dashboards. </p><p>My Laptop is dying, it's RAM is crying. </p><p>I'm debugging logic and debugging my own sanity.</p><p>My fellow devs can sympathize with me that in all of this, some how they still need 6 years of experience in a language invented 4 years ago in the job market. We're thinking of how to outsource the next charge, and someone out there is shouting programmers would be obsolete... I write this with utter disdain in my heart...</p><p>All this while "Jara" by Khaid is screaming in stereo directly into my skull.</p><p>Not for vibes, for survival.</p><p>Music is the only thing drowning out the sound of my laptop fan wheezing like it’s got asthma.</p><p>But somehow, somehow, we still show up.</p><p>We still run the commands.</p><p>We still fix the bugs.</p><p>We still build.</p><p><br/></p><p>Because in all this chaos, I know something for sure:</p><p><br/></p><p>One day, it’ll work.</p><p>One day, I’ll hit npm run dev, and it’ll load in 5 seconds.</p><p>One day, I’ll be the one writing “A Day in the Life of a Dev at Meta”,</p><p>…except it’ll be my company, my team, and we’ll hire our people.</p><p><br/></p><p>Till then?</p><p><br/></p><p>I’m here.</p><p>Still building.</p><p>Still Learning.</p><p>Still blessed.</p>
At the end of the month, we give out prizes in 3 categories: Best Content, Top Engagers and
Most Engaged Content.
Best Content
Top Engagers
Most Engaged Content
Best Content
We give out cash prizes to 7 people with the best insights in the past month. The 7 winners are picked
by an in-house selection process.
The winners are NOT picked from the leaderboards/rankings, we choose winners based on the quality, originality
and insightfulness of their content.
Top Engagers
For the Top Engagers Track, we award the top 3 people who engage the most with other user's content via
comments.
The winners are picked using the "Top Monthly Engagers" tab on the rankings page.
Most Engaged Content
The Most Engaged Content recognizes users whose content received the most engagement during the month.
We pick the top 3.
The winners are picked using the "Top Monthly Contributors" tab on the rankings page.
Here are a few other things to know for the Best Content track
1
Quality over Quantity — You stand a higher chance of winning by publishing a few really good insights across the entire month,
rather than a lot of low-quality, spammy posts.
2
Share original, authentic, and engaging content that clearly reflects your voice, thoughts, and opinions.
3
Avoid using AI to generate content—use it instead to correct grammar, improve flow, enhance structure, and boost clarity.
4
Explore audio content—high-quality audio insights can significantly boost your chances of standing out.
5
Use eye-catching cover images—if your content doesn't attract attention, it's less likely to be read or engaged with.
6
Share your content in your social circles to build engagement around it.
Contributor Rankings
The Rankings/Leaderboard shows the Top 20 contributors and engagers on TwoCents a monthly and all-time basis
— as well as the most active colleges (users attending/that attended those colleges)
The all-time contributors ranking is based on the Contributor Score, which is a measure of all the engagement and exposure a contributor's content receives.
The monthly contributors ranking tracks performance of a user's insights for the current month. The monthly and all-time scores are calcuated DIFFERENTLY.
This page also shows the top engagers on an all-time & monthly basis.
All-time Contributors
All-time Engagers
Top Monthly Contributors
Top Monthly Engagers
Most Active Colleges
Contributor Score
The all-time ranking is based on users' Contributor Score, which is a measure of all
the engagement and exposure a contributor's content receives.
Here is a list of metrics that are used to calcuate your contributor score, arranged from
the metric with the highest weighting, to the one with the lowest weighting.
1
Subscriptions received
2
Tips received
3
Comments (excluding replies)
4
Upvotes
5
Views
6
Number of insights published
Engagement Score
The All-time Engagers ranking is based on a user's Engagement Score — a measure of how much a
user engages with other users' content via comments and upvotes.
Here is a list of metrics that are used to calcuate the Engagement Score, arranged from
the metric with the highest weighting, to the one with the lowest weighting.
1
A user's comments (excluding replies & said user's comments on their own content)
2
A user's upvotes
Monthly Score
The Top Monthly Contributors ranking is a monthly metric indicating how users respond to your posts, not just how many you publish.
We look at three main things:
1
How strong your best post is —
Your highest-scoring post this month carries the most weight. One great post can take you far.
2
How consistent the engagement you receive is —
We also look at the average score of all your posts. If your work keeps getting good reactions, you get a boost.
3
How consistent the engagement you receive is —
Posting more helps — but only a little.
Extra posts give a small bonus that grows slowly, so quality always matters more than quantity.
In simple terms:
A great post beats many ignored posts
Consistently engaging posts beat one lucky hit
Spamming low-engagement posts won't help
Tips, comments, and upvotes from others matter most
This ranking is designed to reward
Thoughtful, high-quality posts
Real engagement from the community
Consistency over time — without punishing you for posting again
The Top Monthly Contributors leaderboard reflects what truly resonates, not just who posts the most.
Top Monthly Engagers
The Top Monthly Engagers ranking tracks the most active engagers on a monthly basis
Here is what we look at
1
A user's monthly comments (excluding replies & said user's comments on their own content)
2
A user's monthly upvotes
Most Active Colleges
The Most Active Colleges ranking is a list of the most active contributors on TwoCents, grouped by the
colleges/universities they attend(ed)
Here is what we look at
1
All insights posted by contributors that attended a particular school (at both undergraduate or postgraduate levels)
2
All comments posted by contributors that attended a particular school (at both undergraduate or postgraduate levels) —
excluding replies
Below is a list of badges on TwoCents and their designations.
Comments