From University of Ilorin Networks to European HPC Infrastructure

Ifetayo Agboola’s career in digital infrastructure has taken him from network operations at the University of Ilorin to data-centre engineering at Amazon Web Services and high-performance computing support in Finland.

Agboola, who grew up in Ilorin, Kwara State, developed an early interest in computers through his mother’s typewriter and desktop computer. He later joined the computer club at Federal Government College, Ilorin, before enrolling at Babcock University in Ogun State in 2010 to study Computer Science Information Systems.

While at Babcock, Agboola was part of a student engineering team that built the network infrastructure for the university’s first digital on-campus voting system. He said the experience showed him that technology extended beyond programming theory and had important practical applications.

Building experience in Nigeria

During his National Youth Service Corps placement at the University of Ilorin’s Network Operations Centre, Agboola supported connectivity for computer-based testing and staff quarters. He also helped supervise the installation of a 10-kilometre fibre-optic link.

He described the NOC experience as a turning point in his development. “My NYSC tenure at the NOC was a true eye-opener. It provided my foundational operational experience in digital infrastructure,” he said.

After completing his service, Agboola returned to the centre as a volunteer. His continued presence there led to a recommendation for a position at Coollink, where he worked with fibre-to-the-home networks, wide-area networks, very small aperture terminals and maritime satellite communications.

He was also part of the technical team that deployed Facebook Express Wi-Fi hotspots across Lagos. Agboola said Coollink gave him broad exposure to the infrastructure operating behind consumer-facing technology.

His next move came through a family connection. A cousin working at Huawei encouraged him to apply to Globacom, where Agboola worked on 4G capacity expansion. He later joined an assignment to rehabilitate the company’s network infrastructure in Ghana.

During that work, network data traffic increased from 3 TB to 10 TB within six months and later reached nearly 30 TB over an 18-month period, according to the account of the project. Agboola said the role also taught him how to communicate technical value to non-technical stakeholders.

Move to AWS and HPC

Agboola said referrals played a major role throughout his career. “Every major role I’ve held came through referrals. If I had relied solely on formal applications, I might never have been picked,” he said.

An AWS recruiter contacted him after seeing LinkedIn posts about network performance milestones. Although he initially questioned the message, Agboola verified the recruiter and completed five interview rounds before joining AWS’s data-centre operations team in Frankfurt.

At AWS, his responsibilities included hardware troubleshooting, network operations, artificial intelligence infrastructure deployments, commissioning and decommissioning, performance planning and site expansion. He also worked with the company’s Black Employee Network and represented the group at a summit in Washington in 2025.

Agboola left AWS in 2026 after four years and joined XTX Markets in Finland as an HPC Infrastructure Support Engineer. His current work involves supporting high-performance computing clusters and maintaining high-speed networking, servers, switches, InfiniBand systems and direct liquid cooling.

He said the HPC environment is more specialised than the general-purpose infrastructure he handled at AWS. “It’s my first time. So I’m also learning a lot,” he said.

Looking ahead

Agboola said he intends to deepen his knowledge of HPC infrastructure, explore leadership opportunities and contribute to the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure in Africa.

He also wants to help more people enter data-centre engineering, describing the relatively small community in Nigeria and across Africa as an opportunity to develop talent.

“I’ve always been curious. I constantly want to understand how systems function and how to make them better,” Agboola said, describing the approach that has guided his progression across network operations, cloud infrastructure and specialised computing.