About
Built where it runs.
Fifth Engineering is a forward-deployed engineering firm in Lagos. Our engineers join banks, investment firms and development-finance institutions to build the systems their operations run on.
Start a conversationFive questions about Fifth
What is a forward-deployed engineer?
An engineer who works inside your organisation instead of a vendor’s office. They sit with the people who do the work, find where it breaks, and build the fix in your systems, with your data.
Why the name Fifth?
A team with four engineers does not need a fifth opinion. It needs a fifth engineer: one more person writing code alongside them, who answers for the result.
Why do we hand over?
We build systems your people can run without us. Your team learns as we build and owns the code, the data and the documentation. Whether we stay on afterwards is your choice.
Why Lagos?
The institutions we build for are here, from Broad Street to Victoria Island, and so are their problems: reconciliations across naira and dollar accounts, returns to the CBN and SEC Nigeria, customers who bank by USSD as well as by app. We build for those conditions because we work in them.
What will we not do?
We will not sell you a platform licence or leave you with a report. If software you can buy off the shelf will solve the problem, we will tell you, and help you choose it.
Why we started
Founders’ letter.
To the teams we will join,
We started Fifth Engineering because we kept seeing the same pattern in Lagos. An institution knows exactly where its operation breaks: the reconciliation done by hand at every month end, the regulatory return rebuilt from spreadsheets, the customer who waits a week to be onboarded. It buys another platform licence, or hires advisers who write a report and leave. A year later the problem is still there, and so is the spreadsheet.
The people who understand a problem are rarely the people asked to fix it. We think they belong in the same room. So our engineers join your team, sit with the people who do the work, and build the system where it will run, on your data and inside your controls.
We hold ourselves to three rules. We measure our work by what reaches production, not by hours billed. The engineer who finds the problem builds the fix. And what we build belongs to you: the code, the data and the documentation, with your team trained to run it. If you want us to stay on, we stay. If you do not need us, we have done our job.
We are a new firm, and we would rather be judged on our first month inside your team than on anything written here. That is why every engagement starts with a discovery phase of fixed scope.
We work from Broad Street, in the Marina, and we are building Fifth for Nigeria first and then the rest of Africa. The problems here deserve engineers who understand them first-hand.
If something in your operation costs more than it should, write to us. An engineer will read it.
Ayobami J. Opeyemi and Okezie OfoegbuCo-founders, Fifth Engineering
Ayobami J. Opeyemi
Co-founder and Principal Forward-Deployed Engineer
Ayobami, known as Max, makes it run. He leads engineering at Fifth and built the backbone of how it works: an engineering system in which every change passes automated security, architecture and design review before it ships. Having built for regulated financial institutions, he puts security, audit trails and reliability into the first version, not the last. His belief is simple: a system is finished only when the client’s own team can run it without him.
Previously: Founder and Principal Architect, Blackroot Labs
LinkedIn
Okezie Ofoegbu
Co-founder and Forward-Deployed Executive
Okezie opens the doors. He leads Fifth’s work with the institutions it serves, drawing on more than twenty years in African markets, from upstream operations at ExxonMobil to private equity at Emerging Capital Partners, and transactions worth more than US$2.3 billion across Africa.
Previously: ExxonMobil, Emerging Capital Partners · MBA, Wharton
LinkedIn
Work with us
Ways to work with us.
Discovery
Four weeks inside your team with a fixed scope. We map how the work runs, measure what it costs you, and agree the problem worth fixing first.
Weeks 1–4 · Fixed scope
Embedded build
Engineers join your people to build the system, test it on real work, and take it into production.
Weeks 3–10
Product build
For an organisation with an idea and no technology team: we design, build and launch the product, then run it for you or hand it to the team you build.
Scoped per product
Run and improve
After handover, we can stay on a monthly retainer to run the system, watch it, and keep improving it.
Monthly retainer · Optional
How we work
Your path to a working system.
Every engagement follows the same path, whatever the sector. It starts inside your organisation and is measured by what reaches production.
The timings below are typical. Discovery sets the real plan, and you see it before you commit to more.
- 00
First conversation
Before we start
Thirty minutes on how the work runs today, what it costs you, and what fixing it would take.
- 01
Discovery
Weeks 1–4
Our engineers join your team with a fixed scope. They sit with the people who do the work, map where it breaks, and agree what to fix first.
- 02
Prototype
Weeks 3–6
A working version on your own data, which the people who will use it test on their real work.
- 03
Deploy
Weeks 6–10
The system goes into production inside your security and change controls, and we stay close through its first weeks of real use.
- 04
Productise
Days 60–90
We harden what works: tests, access controls, documentation, and the reports your auditors and regulators ask for.
- 05
Handover
Days 90–120
Your team takes ownership of the code, the data and the documentation. If you want, we stay on to run and improve it.
Our commitments
Built to be owned.By your team.
What each part of your organisation can expect from us, from the first week to handover.
A fixed first month
Discovery has a fixed scope, so you know what the first month covers before you commit to more.
Progress you can see
We report progress by what is running in production and what it has changed for your operation.
You own what we build
The code, the data and the documentation are yours. We keep only the know-how we brought.
Engineers beside your people
We work with the people who do the work, on site where it helps, so the system fits how the work is really done.
Learning as we build
Your engineers see each decision as it is made and learn the system while it is built.
Documentation you can use
Runbooks and records written in plain English for the people who will run the system.
Support after handover
When your team is ready, we step back, and stay on retainer for as long as you want us.
Inside your controls
We follow your security, access and change-management policies from the first day.
Only the access we need
We ask for the access the work requires, and it is removed when the work ends.
Your data, your rules
Before we touch personal data, we agree in writing where it may be processed, in line with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.
Records for your auditors
Every change is reviewed and logged, so your auditors and regulators can see who changed what, and when.