Toyota Product Designer Sola Babatunde Reveals The Key To Landing Positions At Major Tech Companies
Sola Babatunde reveals his standout experience that attracted major tech companies within the UX/UI sector.
The Dallas area native’s foray into technology can be traced back to studying film in high school. He did not have a knack for the camera or other areas of film such as director of photography or acting. However, he discovered his strong suit was within the tech side of the field in sound engineering and editing, and as his skills strengthened it would introduce him to UX and UI.
“Both of those have these modules you can script like a plugin,” he explained. “So I practiced scripting and coding plugins, and that was my first entry into the world of tech. And eventually those plugins had graphical user interfaces, and that was my first exposure to UX/UI.”
Babatunde didn’t take an immediate detour into the field as a career. He obtained a bachelor of science degree in mechatronics engineering. According to his LinkedIn, he then landed a role as a part-time s in UX, with a focus on product design, leading him to work there as an intern.
He continued to maintain a steady footprint within the field with contracted roles at Adobe, Meta, Airbnb, and Microsoft. He believes his biggest leverage working at these companies was showing the amount of research he had gathered, dating back to when he was studying film in high school and throughout college. He conducted research for various local nonprofits and did projects for research labs working on startups, capital funds, etc.
“If I had to give someone advice, it would probably be get to your first 50 projects as fast as you can, because by the time you reach the 50th one, you will have learned so much,” he explained.
Now working at Toyota as a product designer, Babatunde says it is the first time within his career trajectory that he has been able to marry his mechatronics educational background with his field of work, which he sees as an advantage. Some of his responsibilities include leading UX for in-vehicle keyboard redesign across 8-inch-to-14-inch screens and collaborating with product managers and software engineers for research to create solutions for settings, Google Maps services, and customer service.
“Toyota has been incredible… Working at Toyota was an opportunity for me to apply my mechatronics knowledge more to the UX problems that we would be facing, where I could actually see more of that in-between gap. And because of how large my base knowledge was for the automotive industry, and how large my acquired knowledge was for UX, the nature of problems I ended up approaching and seeing got to be more — got to grow exponentially. Just because I was able to use these two spheres of my background to now see way more problems than I could normally see in one sphere or the other sphere alone. I know problems that we can experience and have commonly with cars, and I know problems that visual interfaces have commonly with cars, problems visual interfaces have commonly with people, so now I can see ways to mix them and see ways to improve them both,” he explained.
Secure Your AFROTECH™ Ticket Today
Babatunde hopes his foray into tech will serve as a testament to other professionals who may be on a more traditional path but haven’t yet been exposed to the broader concentrations within the field. As he carries out this mission, he will be appearing at the AFROTECH™ Conference — held from Oct. 27-31, 2025, at the George R. Brown Center in Houston — as a speaker.
For those interested in attending Babatunde’s session, click here to secure your ticket.
