Engineering at Wowzi
Building the End-to-End Influencer Marketing Operating System for Africa
At Wowzi, engineering is much more than writing code or handling data. It’s the driving force behind our mission to make influencer marketing accessible, scalable, and efficient across Africa. We are building what we call the influencer marketing operating system for Africa: a platform designed to empower brands, creators, and advertisers with the tools they need to succeed.
Our Engineering Philosophy
Engineering at Wowzi is about enabling seamless processes. Our goal is to remove friction and boost efficiency at every stage, whether that’s back-office operations, our mobile app, or our business platform. We build systems that are intuitive and largely self-sufficient, letting users focus on what matters while our technology handles the heavy lifting behind the scenes.
Central to our approach is a continuous user feedback loop. This drives an iterative development process ensuring our products evolve based on real-world use, keeping us aligned with our vision to be the definitive operating system for influencer marketing in Africa.
A Distributed Engineering Team
Our engineering team is truly global, with talent spread across Kenya, Nigeria, the UK, the Netherlands, and Ukraine. This diversity allows us to tap into a rich range of perspectives and collaborate across time zones, building solutions that reflect the varied needs of users across the continent and beyond.
The Wowzi Engineering Team
Our multi-disciplinary engineering team includes Backend (BE), Frontend Web and Mobile (FE), Data Engineering and Analytics, DevSecOps, and Quality Assurance (QA). Together with product management, design, and analytics teams, we deliver features that are both technically sound and user-centric.
We organize around specialized, autonomous feature teams that own delivery end-to-end. This empowers rapid innovation and meaningful impact. We’ve also heavily invested in AI-powered solutions for content moderation, creator insights, campaign automation, and reporting; all critical to scaling our platform across Africa.
Our Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
Our SDLC blends Agile best practices with clear, consistent communication:
Planning & Design: Features start as Epics in Jira, broken down into Stories and Tasks to align the team and track progress.
Development & Automation: We use a combination of monolithic and event-driven serverless microservices (like AWS Lambda) for scalable, cost-effective solutions.
Testing & Quality Assurance: Rigorous unit tests, QA, and user acceptance testing (UAT) ensure stability and quality.
Staging & Demos: Features are demoed regularly, from design to staging, with continuous feedback guiding improvements.
Production & Monitoring: Real-time monitoring and user feedback drive reliability and future updates.
Building for the Future
Payments aren’t just an add-on; they’re a core part of creator-led campaigns. Our platform aims to unlock not only creative potential but also financial freedom for creators, starting in Africa and expanding globally.
We envision a future where every creator with a Wowzi account has a “Pay with Wowzi” option on every checkout page.
Engineering as an Enabler
Engineering at Wowzi powers the entire influencer marketing workflow. With automation, a focus on user experience, and feedback-driven iteration, we’re building a platform that will continue to innovate and shape influencer marketing’s future in Africa.
We embrace failure but fast failure. This mindset helps us deliver the most valuable automations and features that truly matter to our users.
Stay tuned as we share more insights from our engineering journey!
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