About Me

I was born in Nigeria, now living in London, having lived and worked across the UK, Canada, and the U.S, building software products that power everything from everyday banking to zero-knowledge identity systems. I'm currently based in the UK, working across fintech, crypto, and infrastructure startups. My journey into tech has always been driven by one thing: turning big, ambitious ideas into tools that people use every day.

I'm the Founding Engineer at Trudenty, where we're building a secure, zero-knowledge-based identity and fraud prevention platform. I've led the architecture for our full-stack system—everything from our React SDKs to our GraphQL backend—and helped raise $500K in pre-seed funding.

At Trudenty, I also led the development of our mobile credential storage system and implemented privacy-first infrastructure that balances security with seamless UX.

Before Trudenty, I worked at Union Bank of Nigeria, where I played a key role in the creation of the M36 B2B2C investment platform, which allowed customers to access bonds, treasury bills, and other financial instruments through a modern interface. It was a huge push in digital transformation for one of Nigeria's oldest banks.

I also led the development of an ATS and CRM platform that handled over 100,000+ job placements within weeks of launch—helping reshape how major Nigerian finance companies source talent.

In 2023, I joined the GitHub Growth Engineering team, where I worked on core notification infrastructure and user retention systems. I collaborated with Microsoft engineers to migrate parts of the platform from legacy Rails code to a modern React stack—bringing performance and accessibility improvements to millions of users.

I've always had one foot in fintech and another in the decentralized space. I built the ZkSync Layer 2 backend for Capitalrollup, a platform focused on recurring USDC savings. I'm also an early investor and advisor to Fluidcoins, a crypto payments rail for Africa that was later acquired in an acquihire.

I'm a huge believer in lifting up the next wave of builders. I've mentored student engineers from the University of Toronto, helped early-stage startups refine their technical stack, and supported founders as an angel and advisor. Most of my investments focus on crypto infra, African fintech, and productivity tools.

When I'm not in deep focus mode, you'll probably find me sketching out product ideas, trying to finish a novel I started years ago, or learning languages (I speak English, French, and German). I'm drawn to ideas that empower people—especially those solving foundational problems in trust, identity, and financial access.

Whether you're building something bold, hiring engineers, or just want to jam on zero-knowledge systems—I'd love to hear from you.

👉 ayoalfonso.com | LinkedIn