In Lagos, where tech ambition often collides with structural inefficiencies, one startup is reshaping how African businesses access and leverage software talent. Techline.ng, founded by software engineer and architect Mike Ekeghe, has positioned itself as a verified and AI-powered marketplace for Nigerian tech professionals, bridging the longstanding trust gap between talent and opportunity.
In an exclusive interview with Techparley Africa, Ekeghe said the platform is not just another freelance listing site. It is a structured marketplace that prioritizes verification, flexibility, and efficiency, positioning itself as a central infrastructure layer for Africa’s tech talent ecosystem.
“I saw incredibly talented developers struggling to access quality opportunities, while businesses struggled to find reliable, vetted tech talent,” Ekeghe told Techparley Africa. “There was always a trust and quality gap. Techline.ng was born out of that frustration.”
By combining his technical insight with business foresight, Ekeghe is leading the startup to address Africa’s fragmented talent and inconsistent hiring practices.
What You Should Know About Techline
Techline.ng is a marketplace that connects businesses with pre-screened, verified tech professionals. Unlike generic freelance platforms, which often focus on volume over quality, Techline integrates verification, structured engagement, and AI-powered matching to ensure businesses access competent professionals quickly and reliably.
The platform includes developers, designers, and tech specialists from across Nigeria, each vetted through a rigorous process that ensures their skills, experience, and professional standards meet international expectations.
“We built Techline.ng not just as a listing platform, but as a structured, quality-controlled marketplace designed by engineers for businesses,” says Ekeghe.
The vision is not only to centralize talent but also to redefine the hiring process in Africa, making it more professional, predictable, and results-driven. For companies, this translates into reduced risk, faster hiring, and access to a wider talent pool. For professionals, it provides visibility, credibility, and opportunities that are often unavailable in fragmented markets.
Techline’s emphasis on structure is particularly critical in Africa, where hiring systems are often informal. By offering a platform engineered for scalability, transparency, and efficiency, it positions itself as a tool that can transform how businesses engage with tech talent, from local startups to global enterprises.
Why Was Techline Created?
According to Ekeghe, Africa’s tech hiring ecosystem suffers from three persistent challenges, including trust, discoverability, and structure. Traditional hiring often relies on informal networks, referrals, or lengthy recruitment cycles, creating inefficiencies for businesses and barriers for talent.
“I saw two recurring problems: incredibly talented Nigerian developers struggling to access quality opportunities, and businesses struggling to find reliable, vetted tech talent,” explains Ekeghe.
This gap motivated the creation of a platform designed to bridge fragmented networks and standardize quality.
The implications of this gap are significant. Startups may spend months sourcing the right developer or designer, delaying product launches. Businesses may take risks on unverified talent, leading to project failures. For skilled professionals, opportunities are often limited to what they can access via personal networks, leaving many underemployed or overlooked despite their capabilities.
Techline addresses this by centralizing verified talent and providing a structured marketplace, where both businesses and professionals operate under standardized engagement models. The platform’s flexible approach, direct hire, outsourcing, or gig contracts allows companies to adapt quickly to budget, project size, and growth stage, a critical factor for startups and SMEs in Africa’s dynamic economic environment.
How the Platform Works
The founder said Techline is built on three key pillars, which are verification, AI-powered matching, and flexible engagement models.
- Verification: Techline begins with rigorous verification. Professionals undergo identity checks, portfolio reviews, skill assessments, and reference validation. Key roles also receive structured technical evaluations. This ensures businesses hire talent they can trust and raises the credibility of African tech professionals.
- AI-Powered Matching: AI drives intelligent talent matching. The system evaluates skills, experience, project requirements, and engagement type to recommend the best candidates. This reduces mismatches, speeds up hiring, and improves outcomes, with future plans to include predictive performance insights and smarter project scoping.
- Flexible Engagement Models: The platform offers full-time hire, project outsourcing, or gig-based contracts. Startups and SMEs can scale teams according to budget and project needs, ensuring access to high-quality talent without unnecessary overhead.
By combining these elements, Ekeghe says Techline ensures that businesses access reliable talent efficiently while professionals gain structured, credible opportunities.
Who Can Benefit from Techline?
Techline’s design prioritises businesses and professionals who have historically been underserved by existing recruitment systems.
- Startups: Often without HR teams, startups need quick, reliable access to verified talent. Techline.ng provides structured, fast solutions for hiring developers and designers without excessive overhead.
- SMEs: Small and medium enterprises benefit from flexible contracts and scalable engagement models, enabling them to grow teams in line with budget and project needs.
- Global Companies: International clients seeking African tech talent can rely on verified profiles and AI-matched recommendations, reducing risks associated with remote hiring.
For professionals, the platform provides access to both domestic and international opportunities while building credibility and visibility in markets that previously relied heavily on informal networks.
Where Techline is Making an Impact
While Techline is primarily focused on Nigeria, its impact is already being felt globally. The platform disclosed it has connected Nigerian developers to clients outside Africa, proving that African talent can compete on the world stage when provided with the proper structure and verification.
Perception remains a barrier. Techline addresses this by building a strong brand around verification, professionalism, and enterprise readiness.
Early engagements with international businesses have resulted in positive feedback on quality and delivery standards, signaling that African developers, when presented credibly, are in demand worldwide.
Domestically, the platform is reducing recruitment friction, allowing Nigerian startups and SMEs to access talent faster, scale efficiently, and focus on execution rather than hiring.
How AI Shapes the Future of African Hiring
Artificial intelligence is increasingly critical in talent marketplaces, but its application in African hiring has been limited. Techline leverages AI to predict the best matches between businesses and talent, considering factors such as experience, skill set, project type, and engagement preferences.
This predictive approach reduces mismatches, shortens hiring cycles, and improves project outcomes. Future iterations aim to integrate performance insights and smarter project scoping, giving businesses predictive intelligence on candidate fit.
By combining AI with rigorous verification, Techline positions itself at the intersection of innovation, trust, and efficiency in African tech hiring.
Trust is central to remote and digital hiring, particularly in emerging markets where formal verification systems are inconsistent. Many businesses in Africa are cautious about engaging talent remotely because there is no standardized way to confirm skills and professionalism.
Techline’s multi-layered verification model addresses this by validating identities, portfolios, and technical skills, and by conducting reference checks where applicable. The outcome is a highly credible talent pool, which both reduces risk for businesses and elevates the perception of African tech professionals globally.
About the Founder
Mike Ekeghe embodies a rare blend of technical expertise and entrepreneurial vision. As a software engineer, architect, and AWS-certified professional, he balances product innovation, team management, and technical contributions.
According to him, in Techline’s early stages, he was deeply involved in product architecture, ensuring a strong technical foundation. As the platform scales, he delegates execution to capable teams while maintaining strategic oversight.
“My role increasingly shifts toward strategy, partnerships, and long-term vision, while staying close enough to maintain technical excellence,” Ekeghe explains.
His personal credibility as a founder, combined with his deep technical understanding, gives Techline a unique advantage over competitors in Africa’s emerging talent marketplace.
Closing Africa’s Tech Talent Gap
Africa’s tech talent market faces three critical gaps. Fragmented talent networks and informal hiring processes leave businesses and professionals navigating inefficient and risky systems. Techline says it addresses these gaps with verification, AI-powered matching, and multiple engagement models.
Unlike generic freelance platforms, it creates an infrastructure layer that standardizes and professionalizes tech hiring, elevating the overall ecosystem while providing tangible benefits to businesses and professionals alike.
In five years, Techline aims to become Africa’s most trusted AI-powered marketplace for verified tech talent, expanding across Africa and internationally. Plans include deeper enterprise services, managed teams, and more structured outsourcing solutions.
Ekeghe envisions a platform where businesses access global-quality talent confidently, and African professionals gain visibility, credibility, and opportunities in local and international markets.
According to industry leaders, Techline exemplifies how innovation, structure, and trust can reshape a fragmented tech ecosystem. By addressing systemic challenges in Africa’s talent market and integrating AI, verification, and flexible engagement, the platform is creating new opportunities for businesses and developers alike, while raising the global profile of African tech talent.
For Nigerian startups, SMEs, and international clients, Techline represents both opportunity and transformation, demonstrating that with vision and rigor, Africa can lead in technology innovation, talent credibility, and digital workforce development.
Talking Points
It is impressive that Techline has built a platform combining AI-powered matching with multi-layered verification, addressing a major challenge many African businesses face: finding reliable and skilled tech talent.
This structured approach positions Techline as a practical solution for startups, SMEs, and enterprises looking to hire quickly without compromising quality. By ensuring that every professional is vetted and verified, the platform builds trust in a market where informal hiring is common.
At Techparley, we see how tools like this can accelerate Africa’s digital economy, connecting talented developers to both local and global opportunities, and helping businesses scale with confidence.
The combination of AI, verification, and flexible engagement models means companies can now access full-time, outsourced, or gig-based talent efficiently, giving them operational flexibility similar to larger enterprises.
As Techline scales, we see an opportunity for strategic partnerships to accelerate talent onboarding and increase its footprint across Africa. With the right support, Techline has the potential to become a catalyst for professionalizing tech hiring and elevating African developers on the global stage.
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