Skip to content

About / Aliu Tijani

Engineer by training.
Builder by habit.

I connect cloud infrastructure, application code, and the interfaces people use. Based in Accra, building across the stack.

Portrait of Aliu Tijani

From hardware
to the cloud.

My background is in Computer Engineering at Accra Institute of Technology, where my studies brought software, networking, and embedded systems together. My work has moved between those layers: a WebSocket-based IoT architecture and robot-navigation module during an internship, robotics teaching and mentoring at Fireflyio, and a facial-recognition access system running on a Raspberry Pi 5 for my capstone. Those projects connected application code to physical devices and the people using them.

On the product side, I have worked with React, Next.js, TypeScript, and React Native to turn backend capabilities into usable interfaces. At Firnal, that included production screens and reusable components, REST API and OpenAI integrations, and dashboards presenting behavioural insights over a 250M+ consumer graph. Working in a small team with weekly releases made component consistency, API integration, and cross-browser behaviour part of the delivery work, not separate finishing tasks.

My cloud work extends that end-to-end approach into infrastructure. Projects such as SafeRoute, PayTrack Africa, and event-cloud connect AWS request handling, authentication, data storage, and orchestration with Terraform-defined environments. They address different problems, from incident response to invoicing and event registration, while bringing together application design and the way the system is provisioned and deployed.

I also work with applied computer vision and security. At Youth in AI, I built a produce-quality detection pipeline that included annotation, preprocessing, and YOLOv8 fine-tuning. My network-security lab and cybersecurity training provide another perspective on the systems I build: how services are exposed, how traffic behaves, and how access is controlled. Across these areas, my focus is on connecting the parts into a working system rather than stopping at one layer.

Participant in the IEEE Computer Society 2026 Global Student Challenge and an alum of the Azubi Africa cloud engineering program, currently based in Ghana.

Experience

Jun 2025 - Apr 2026

Remote

Software Engineer

Firnal Inc, moonbrush.ai

  • Engineered 15+ production UI screens and reusable components in React, Next.js, and TypeScript for enterprise and political clients
  • Built REST API and OpenAI integration layers powering real-time behavioural-insight widgets over a 250M+ consumer graph
  • Designed Tailwind CSS dashboards that translate segmentation and AI-generated audience data into clear views for non-technical stakeholders
  • Shipped weekly on a 4 to 6 person team, standardizing cross-browser compatibility as the component library scaled to new client verticals

Jun 2025 - Sep 2025

Remote

AI Research Intern

Youth in AI

  • Built and deployed an end-to-end computer-vision pipeline using YOLOv8 for automated produce quality detection
  • Fine-tuned a YOLOv8 model on a custom produce dataset to improve detection accuracy
  • Engineered a data annotation and preprocessing pipeline that improved dataset consistency and training throughput

May 2024 - Oct 2024

Accra, Ghana

Robotics Instructor and Mentor

Fireflyio

  • Taught robotics fundamentals and software-hardware integration to 50+ students across multiple cohorts
  • Mentored 15 student teams for the Ghana Robotics Competition and lifted team completion rates by 30%

Apr 2024 - Jul 2024

Remote

Full-Stack Developer

Global Talent

  • Built a cross-platform React Native sports-scouting app with real-time notifications and REST API integration
  • Improved backend data-sync performance by 40% through tighter API contracts

Jun 2023 - Aug 2023

Accra, Ghana

Computer Engineer Intern

Techten Planet

  • Built a real-time WebSocket IoT communication architecture that cut latency by 25%
  • Developed a computer-vision module for robot navigation

What I work with

Cloud and serverless

Designing event-driven backends that scale to zero and provision from code.

  • AWS Lambda
  • API Gateway
  • DynamoDB
  • Step Functions
  • Cognito
  • S3
  • Location Service
  • Terraform
  • GitHub Actions
  • OIDC deploys

Frontend

Interfaces that stay fast and legible on top of busy data.

  • React
  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • React Native

Backend and APIs

Contracts, auth, and data layers that hold up outside a demo.

  • Node.js
  • Express
  • FastAPI
  • Flask
  • REST
  • GraphQL
  • WebSocket
  • JWT

AI and computer vision

From annotation pipeline to inference on a device.

  • OpenAI API
  • Gemini API
  • LLM integration
  • YOLOv8
  • OpenCV
  • Model fine-tuning

Data

Choosing the store that fits the access pattern.

  • DynamoDB
  • MongoDB
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • Redis
  • Firebase

Security

Reconnaissance, scanning, and hardening as a habit.

  • Nmap
  • Scapy
  • Wireshark
  • Enum4Linux
  • Burp Suite
  • Kali Linux

Education

B.Sc. Computer Engineering

Accra Institute of Technology

Sep 2021 - Sep 2025 / Accra, Ghana

  • Machine Learning
  • Deep Learning
  • Computer Vision
  • Distributed Systems
  • Data Science
  • Networking and Security
  • Embedded Systems

Certification

  • Cloud EngineeringAzubi AfricaCapstone: event-cloud
  • Certified Ethical HackerParoCyberPerfect score
  • IEEE Computer Society Global Student ChallengeIEEE Computer Society2026 participant
  • Introduction to Cybersecurity EssentialsIBM and Coursera
  • AI-900: Azure AI FundamentalsMicrosoftIn progress
  • Akwaaba Dapps Hackathon / ICP Hub Ghana

    Built TrustChain, a blockchain-based reputation system on the Internet Computer, selected for Demo Day.

    2nd PlaceApr 2025
  • ATF AI Challenge / African Technology Forum and OpenAI Foundation

    Built SignGPT, an AI sign-language translation app, competing against 400+ students from 23 universities.

    2nd PlaceJul 2024
  • SAF Hackathon / StudentPreneur Africa Festival

    FinalistFeb 2024