Alma Asinobi remembered the moment reality set in. The profession she had prepared for would not fund the life she wanted to live.
It was late 2020, and she had just finished her master’s degree in architecture from Covenant University, Ota, in Southwestern Nigeria. Asinobi did the math: if she stayed in the profession and stretched a Nigerian junior architect’s salary, she would not be able to travel the way she wanted.
According to Glassdoor data from July 2022, junior architects in Lagos earned between ₦124,000 and ₦208,000 ($299–$502 at the official exchange rate at the time) monthly, underscoring the modest pay many early-career professionals in Nigeria’s architecture industry received.
But before this awakening, Asinobi had been quietly building other skills. She managed a blog, ran a small thrift business and learned how communities formed around social media. She applied for a content writing role at an investment management startup, Cowrywise, in late 2020.
Although she didn’t get the job, her writing caught the attention of a human resources manager who found her Instagram profile and later offered her a content marketing strategist role.
