Engineering with Empathy: A Human Centered Journey of Innovation, Leadership and Award Winning Technological Impact

By Tosin Clegg

When people describe software engineers, the words they choose are often technical. They speak about frameworks, architecture, cloud deployments, and scaling systems. But when people describe Suliat Tunmise Oyekola, the story sounds different. Her work has all the complexity one would expect from a highly skilled technologist, yet there is something else beneath it. Something softer, something deeply human. She builds with logic, but she leads with empathy. She writes code, yet she always thinks first about the person who will use what she builds. To her, engineering is not simply an occupation. It is a way of improving life for others.
This idea did not come later in her career. It shaped her from the beginning. As a young developer in Lagos, she spent weekends teaching children how to use computers and helping teenagers learn their first lines of code. Many of her students had never used a laptop before, yet they walked away confident enough to try. She also mentored new developers at Enyata Academy, helping them believe they belonged in tech. These were quiet moments with small groups of learners, but they planted a philosophy that would shape everything she later became known for. She discovered early that technology is not a privilege for a few. It is a bridge for many. It should welcome people in, not shut them out.
Years later, this same belief carried her from Lagos to global technology companies. She did not abandon her philosophy as she advanced. She evolved it. At LeaderX, where she currently serves as Engineering Lead, she helped grow a product from concept into a platform with thousands of active users. The team achieved more than seven thousand users in only ten months. They expanded from web application into mobile and browser versions. They achieved an impressive response time of one to two seconds and maintained service reliability that rarely faltered. These are measurable results, but what makes them meaningful is the intention behind them. She did not scale because scaling was impressive. She scaled because she wanted more people to gain access. She wanted technology to meet people where they already were.
Before LeaderX, she led development at Gloqal. There, she shaped engineering culture, guided weekly product improvements, and helped teams work with clarity instead of exhaustion. She recruited developers, refined coding processes, and built a standard of collaboration grounded in respect rather than pressure. A product is always the visible outcome, but leadership is the invisible work that shapes how excellence happens. Her leadership was a quiet but powerful force. It helped teams feel seen, valued and capable.
Her technical contributions extend across industries including financial technology, marketplace software, cloud architecture, supply chain intelligence and digital identity systems. She strengthened performance at AutoChek, led deployments at BlinqPay, built secure system integrations, and modernized legacy products for efficiency and scale. The projects vary, yet the pattern stays constant. She builds systems that do not only work well. They work well for people.
In 2025, this approach received international recognition when she was named Technical Team Leader of the Year in Africa. Her award was not only acknowledgment of skill in software development. It was recognition of a style of leadership built on empathy, patience and inclusive innovation. That same year she received the Artificial Intelligence Leader Disruptor Award from Globee. In 2023 she was also honored at the Nigeria Technology Awards as the Most Outstanding Software Development Personality of the Year. Her earlier achievements include recognition at Facebook and UNODC Hackathon for Justice and top performance awards at AutoChek and Enyata. These are not moments of luck. They are footprints of someone who has built impact consistently and with purpose.
Her belief in human centered technology is also evident in her research. In 2025 she co authored studies on AI powered fraud detection for digital banking and another on AI driven disruption mitigation for supply chain systems. Both projects were rooted in the idea that artificial intelligence must not only be powerful, it must be understandable. People must trust the decisions systems make on their behalf. She designed predictive models that identify risk early, reduce downtime, and strengthen financial security. She introduced explainable AI elements so humans can see why a decision was made. When technology becomes transparent, it also becomes humane.
This is why her story matters. In an age where machine intelligence is advancing faster than society can fully absorb, she offers a different kind of leadership. One that refuses to separate progress from compassion. One that treats users not as endpoints of code, but as human beings with fears, needs, curiosities and dreams. She believes that technology should not only be efficient. It should also be kind.
Her vision for the future is expansive. She dreams of a world where teenagers in every region can learn computer science without intimidation. She imagines an ecosystem where AI systems empower rather than replace, where automation opens opportunity instead of restricting it. She works toward a landscape where digital participation is not determined by privilege or geography. And she is not waiting for someone else to build that future. She is building it herself, one thoughtful system at a time.
At the heart of her work is a simple but transformative belief. Engineering is a language. Empathy is what makes it understood. She carries this truth through every product she helps architect, every team she guides, and every line of research she contributes to. Her award in 2025 is not the peak of her journey. It is a point of illumination. It is proof that the world is beginning to see what she has always known. Technology becomes meaningful not when it is impressive, but when it is inclusive.
The story of Suliat Tunmise Oyekola is a reminder that the future of engineering does not belong to speed or power alone. It belongs to those who build with care, with awareness, and with an open hand extended toward others. It belongs to those who see code not as instruction, but as connection. Through her work and her philosophy, she is shaping a technological future that is not only smarter, but more human.
And that may be her greatest achievement of all.