Hi 👋, I'm Charles Odili

A backend-heavy Software Engineering Tech Lead, Engineering Manager, and Technical Program Manager. I'm based in Calgary, Canada, where I lead client-facing delivery at a wealth-management technology company — building the platform integrations, APIs and data pipelines that Canadian banks and financial institutions white-label. Before that I built high-throughput backend systems in fintech, and led engineering teams across four African countries.

I'm a technology, product and people builder (my LinkedIn recommendations give some hints).

• 💬 Ask me about distributed systems, backend architecture, REST & GraphQL APIs, OpenAPI-driven development, TypeScript/Node.js, Python, high-volume data ingestion, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, observability, AI-assisted development, and technical leadership

• 📫 Reach me at chaluwa[at]gmail.com

• 📄 Experience and connections — linkedin.com/in/charlesodili

• ✍️ Places I've written:

  1. My dev blog — chalu.hashnode.dev
  2. DevOps & CI/CD — CI vs CD on Earthly
  3. Web performance — Comlink and web workers on LogRocket
  4. TypeScript — Enforcing correctness across dependent function argument values at compile time

• 📕 I'm a published author — I wrote a Java title for Packt in 2012.

• 🌍 I mentor engineers and programs across Africa, including through TalentQL.

• ⚡ Fun facts:

  1. I've been called "the father of African developers" — I designed and led large training programs, in partnership with Google and Facebook, that reached 100,000+ African software engineers over five years, moving them from junior to intermediate to senior and certifying around 10,000 of them in web, mobile and cloud technologies.
  2. Earlier in my career, friends called me a "dedicated server". Once I'm faced with a problem, it gets crushed without distraction.
  3. I was once a bad-ass bass player. I still play sometimes.

Connect with me: