ASC 2019 - API Specifications Conference

Around five years ago, I led an initiative at PayPal to transform all core capabilities into a platform of discoverable, well-encapsulated, reusable API-driven products. We used a very customer-focused approach to go from a monolithic and siloed architecture to a loosely-coupled set of over 250 services with well-designed, modern APIs. We framed this transformational exercise as an organizational change initiative, with the goal of bringing a fundamental shift in how we design and build APIs. We made it a priority to identify and serve all key “customer” constituencies – developers who design and build APIs, developers who create innovative applications using these APIs, as well as the executives who support these efforts. This mindset influenced the strategy, processes and tools that we put together, our communication with the stakeholders, and the definition and measurement of success.