Samson Olusegun is a software engineer at Mavapay, a fintech that moves money across borders over Bitcoin. He runs the entire backend and infrastructure stack, from DevOps and cloud architecture down to the handoff from development into production. Trained in economics, he is also a self-described data guy who tinkers with real-world datasets in his spare time, including a price index for Nigerian markets that he has been building for the past year.
This is the conversation we tried to record once before, until the Nigerian internet had other plans. This time we sat down in the same space, offline, and got into it.
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In this episode, we discuss:
1) Owning your code in the age of AI
What does “your code is your responsibility” actually mean when an AI wrote the code?
The rate bug that quietly cost my company money, and what it taught me
Why “the AI wrote it” doesn’t get you off the hook, and how that echoes an old idea from aviation
2) How a lean fintech team ships safely, and fast
The exact steps Samson’s team runs before any code reaches production
When is it fine to reach for Claude Code, and when is it not?
How Mavapay once switched payment providers overnight and still shipped to production
3) Partners, standards, and the fintech stack
Why the wrong partner can sink even a great engineering team
The virtual-card deal that fell apart, and what it cost
Paystack versus the old guard: how API standards diverge, and why good docs matter more than people think
4) Beyond fintech: a price index for Nigeria
The side project born from watching market prices change day to day
Crowdsourcing data on a “verify, don’t trust” principle
Why Samson doesn’t trust official inflation numbers, and what a rolling price index could fix
A few lines that stuck with me:
“If you break the system, they’re not going to call the AI. They’re going to call you.”
“AI itself is just a black box. It’s what you feed into it that it gives you back.”
“Test like your life depends on it.”
“In fintech, a partner either breaks you or makes you.”
“I’m not concerned about what the seller is selling. I’m concerned about what the buyer buys.”
Where to find Samson Olusegun:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samson-olusegun/
X: https://x.com/nully0x
Mavapay: https://mavapay.co
Where to find me:
https://x.com/jeremyikwuje
Referenced in this episode:
Your code is your responsibility, even if AI wrote it (the Senko Rašić post that sparked the theme): https://blog.senko.net/your-code-is-your-responsibility-even-if-ai-wrote-it
Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code
The Big Mac Index (The Economist): https://www.economist.com/interactive/big-mac-index
Companies and tools mentioned: Mavapay, Sudo, Bridgecard, Miden, Quidax, Paystack, Flutterwave, Interswitch, Remita, E-Tranzact, Binance, Mintlify, Swagger, Postman, Starlink, Spectranet
The full transcript of this episode is available in the Transcript tab. It has been lightly edited for clarity.
