I received the inaugural @blackpythondevs Distinguished Service Award in recognition of my dedication, leadership, and meaningful impact on the community. Read more: damilola-oladele.dev/posts/r…

I added semantic search to my Jekyll blog as a way to get hands-on experience with AI integrations. The challenge: make it free to run without making search worse. Here's how I did it: damilola-oladele.dev/posts/m…

While API references are important, they are just one component of a complete API documentation experience. Like other forms of product documentation, effective API documentation requires thinking beyond a list of endpoints and fields. Read more: damilola-oladele.dev/posts/a…

After 22 months as Documentation Lead for Black Python Devs, I’m stepping into a broader leadership role while continuing to lead documentation efforts. I’m the new 𝗦𝘂𝗯-𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮. Read more: damilola-oladele.dev/posts/n…

Documentation maintainers are the unsung heroes of open source. They make projects accessible, guide new contributors, and keep knowledge alive—yet their work often goes unnoticed. To begin changing that, I’m launching a new series titled 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻-𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀, where documentation maintainers share their experiences, challenges, and insights about open-source documentation. Want a preview of what's coming? → damilola-oladele.dev/oss-doc… Help me find your favourite open-source documentation maintainer! Drop names in the comments, and let’s celebrate the people behind the docs.

Short-term contracts are common in technical writing, but they come with a reputation problem. Even when you do excellent work, a series of brief engagements can raise questions during hiring. Open-source work offers a practical way to offset that bias and build a stronger professional profile: damilola-oladele.dev/posts/u…

I AM IN TEARS! THE 1ST OPEN-SOURCE NIGERIAN LANGUAGE TEXT CLASSIFIER ON @pypi. Please try it out! I’ll spend the next week improving it and merging contributions. Catch any errors? Let me know so I can fix them. pypi.org/project/padie-exten…

Cool, but I’m worried about how secure this would be since email is one of the easiest things to get compromised.

It's SDC season baby!

Most technical writers build documentation around assumptions. They assume users need detailed API references, or will read every section in order. But assumptions often fail, and user behavior tells a different story. User research is the clearest way to uncover that behavior. In this post, I explain what user research is and how to conduct it for documentation: damilola-oladele.dev/posts/h…

hmmm...it's giving servitude

I recently migrated my blog from GitHub Pages to Netlify, and here’s why. My posts weren’t getting indexed by Google. Out of 51 URLs, only three were appearing in search results. At first, I tried manually indexing the site through Google Search Console, but crawling was painfully slow. Then I added a sitemap, hoping that would fix it. It didn’t. The real issue was that my site was hosted on a github. io domain. Since I technically don’t own the domain, Google had trouble fetching and verifying the sitemap. I tried manually submitting each URL, but GitHub Pages runs on shared servers with limited IPs. That led to Google hitting a crawl quota and pausing indexing altogether. Eventually, I bought my own domain, damilola-oladele.dev, and migrated the site to Netlify. Since the move, my site loads faster, Google accepted the sitemap, and I have some control over my setup. I also implemented redirects so every request to the old address now points to damilola-oladele.dev Lesson learned: if you’re serious about SEO and site visibility, don’t be afraid to spend a few bucks to get your own domain and host your blog on a platform that gives you flexibility and ownership. Next is to learn how to improve the site for AI.

When Shank said, “we start our lives so late in Nigeria”, I completely understood him. It’s because he’s seen another world; one that makes you realize how much more you could’ve achieved earlier if you’d simply had an enabling environment. That’s what exposure does: it changes your frame of reference. Honestly, anyone earning a decent income shouldn’t just get comfortable. Strive for exposure. It does something to your life that you can’t measure in money. Exposure is also a confidence booster. In my workspace, I’m the only guy among five young ladies—average age, 25. Each speaks at least three languages (one speaks four, another five!). One runs a thriving YouTube channel, another owns a kennel, another is a professional dancer. And they are all lawyers. I really admire them. When they recently found out my age, one of them innocently asked, “What have you been doing?”😂 I couldn’t even be mad. I just laughed, because I wish I’d known certain things earlier. Still, I’m thankful. Thankful that now I know better, and that it’s a basic requirement for my kids to speak fluently other languages asides Yoruba and English, have hobbies and be consistently encouraged, possess incredible agency. Because these are the things that make life truly livable. If you have the means, invest in exposure. Do it often. The compounding effect will shock you.

There are people I’d really love to follow for some of their content. The problem is that some days, they post too much about football, and I’m then forced to unfollow.

The iPhone’s decade-long dominance stems from a deliberate strategy built on an obsessive focus on user experience. Technical writers can apply the same approach to create documentation that’s clear, focused, and user-centered: damilola-oladele.github.io/p…

Hey friends 👋 Meet our first lineup of speakers for our #Hacktoberfest virtual event, “From Zero to 100”, happening this Friday, October 18th! 🚀 Register here: events.mlh.io/events/13110-f… A thread 👇

Explore how design shapes open source with us! Join our Design Focus Group alongside @iamkingsleey, @VictoryBrown_, @EriolDoesDesign and @GBKS for a live conversation on design education, opportunities, and inclusion in OSS Reminder here: x.com/i/spaces/1ZkJzZleWdNJv #Hacktoberfest