Muhammad-Awwal Balogun

I build scalable systems.
Fintech • AI • Distributed Systems • Startups
CTO @ RunIt
CTO @SolveStation
CTO @Redd
Founder of TechPylon

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

Hi, I’m Awwal.
I’m a backend engineer and pharmacy student from Nigeria building RunIt — a real-time campus logistics marketplace.
Over the last few years I’ve worked across:
fintech systems
healthcare infrastructure
AI products
distributed systems
enterprise SaaS

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

AI made building faster. It did not make my workload smaller.

I read a piece this week where an engineering leader checked his GitHub history and found he is back at his busiest coding pace ever — 427 contributions in August alone, his highest month since 2019.

I felt that.

[Quadstores @Quadstoresltd]

Are you a student vendor, an association or someone that loves student friendly prices?

Meet Quad, the central operating system of the student commerce.

Sell your products to a wider audience, pay your dues in two taps and buy products at student friendly prices.

[Quadstores @Quadstoresltd]

What is Quad?

Quad is a student-based marketplace where you buy, sell and run deliveries on campus.

Over 100+ Students at LUTH and Yabatech are already selling.

Akoka, you are next!🫵🏼
See you on 1st of November.

Check out our website:
https://t.co/GTgpWKzfjB

[Run IT @_RunIT_]

Resumption Calls...
Same does the question

Why move the same?
There's literally ,💸 on the table once you tap into the Ecosystem 🤩❗

[Run IT @_RunIT_]

Who are we if we can’t celebrate our users’ successes?

Meet Jafar, successfully amassed 20,000+ in payouts by tapping into the VALUE in daily movements within Campus

"Walk" smart NOT Hard as they've always said 🔥

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

@Apek_dave @Thedanieloreofe @cencori 🌝🌝

[lordsarcastic @Lord__Sarcastic]

While everyone's building Lagos games, I built one to fix your AI-rot.

Compete with a friend by solving the same algorithm question in record time. You can challenge anyone with their username or email.

Climb the leaderboard and be #1 if you can:
https://t.co/mhpuClDogR

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

It's time to COOK 🫕🫕

[Run IT @_RunIT_]

🎉 HAPPY NEW MONTH!💜

We’ve come a long way.

But there’s still so much ahead. 🚀

More to build.
More opportunities to create.
More impact to make.
More wins to celebrate. 🏁💜

September, let’s get to it. 🟣

[Ojo Michael @my_k_hel]

My WorkSpace is under someone’s bunk

Rendering my mattress useless for 6weeks

[Tech with Mak @techNmak]

These engineering blogs have leveled up my tech skills more than any bootcamp, course, or conference.

Here are the ones worth bookmarking:

[Julian @julian__duru]

bite off more than you can chew, keep chewing until it softens

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

It’s also:
How does the user feel while completing it?”

Still learning this

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

One of the hardest product lessons I’m learning:

users can praise your app…
and still secretly struggle using it.

When we first rolled out parts of RunIt, a lot of users said:

“the flow is nice”
“it works well”
“the app is smooth”

And technically?
They were right.

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

An app can be technically impressive and still emotionally exhausting.

That realization forced me to rethink a lot:
- onboarding,
- wording,
- navigation,
- task flow,
- decision density,
- even button labels.

Good UX isn’t just:
“Can the user complete the task?”

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

Building products makes you realize users don’t care how complex the backend is.
They only notice speed, reliability, and clarity.

Most especially the user flow.

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

Small UX tweaks compound faster than people think.

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

app responsiveness
server efficiency
user trust in the platform
One thing I’ve learned building live systems:
Real-time architecture changes how you think about backend engineering entirely. You stop building around requests. You start building around events, state.

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

One of the biggest backend upgrades we made at https://t.co/LGwA6IcOdu was replacing polling with WebSockets for real-time bidding.
At first, polling was enough.
But once users started actively competing for errands, the cracks showed:
delayed bid updates

[Muhammad-Awwal Balogun @balogun142]

unnecessary API requests
higher server load
users missing jobs because refresh intervals weren’t fast enough
In a bidding marketplace, even a 5-second delay feels broken.
So we moved to WebSockets.
That single architectural shift improved:
real-time bid delivery