INTERFACE, by apidays 2021 - It’s APIs all the way down June 30, July 1 & 2, 2021 Building an API-First organization Ankit Sobti, CTO and Co-founder at Postman

1. Building an API-
First Organization
Presented by
Ankit Sobti
Co-Founder & CTO, Postman

2. Stages
of an
Organization

3. 1–10

4. 1–10
Organization Objective
● Validate the Business
Mode
l
● Solve for more use cases
in the API Lifecycle
Organization Structure
● Engineering grew from
10 to 50
Decision Making Structure
● Top Down decision
making, organizing and
aligning people towards
singular org-wide goals
Centralized Decision
Making

5. Products, Services, Platform
● Products, by definition, are what our
end-consumers directly interact with
.
● Products are built on Service
s
● Services interface with the Products and
with each othe
r
● Services are built on platform
components that are created and
administered by the Platforms team
Product 1 Product 2
Service 1 Service 2 Service 3
Platform

6. API Landscap
e
1–10

7. Collections

8. Mock Servers

9. Consumer Driven Contract Testing

10. 10–100

11. 10–100
Organization Objective
● Growth Stag
e
● Bigger bets, broader
problem landscape
Organization Structure
● Grow from 50 to 100+
Decision Making Structure
● Transition from Top
Down decision making to
“Top-Down Bottom-Up
Alignment”

12. Squad
s
● Cross-Functional Mission Driven Team
s
● Squads are required to Own and Delive
r
● Squads communicate using the same
“Ubiquitous Language
”
● Squads are autonomous
1. Reduce cross team collaboration
2. Responsible from Concept to Cas
h
● Squads Win Togethe
r
● Structures and Culture are isomorphic

13. Isomorphism
● Organizational Architecture
● Technical Architectur
e
● Product Architecture

14. Squads
Benefit
s
● Isolation of Failur
e
● Independent Experimentation, rapid
Iteration
● Lightweight model for newer bet
s
● Focus

15. Squads
Cos
t
● Distributio
n
● Consistenc
y
● Operational Complexity
Benefit
s
● Isolation of Failur
e
● Independent Experimentation, rapid
Iteration
● Lightweight model for newer bet
s
● Focus

16. Organizational Transition

17. Interfaces

18. Dependency Hell
What is it and how does it happen
?
● One team struggles, others around it start to
get impacte
d
● Teams need to operate together to get
anything done
● Teams can’t evolve because of shared
context
s
● A Distributed Monolithic Organization
How do you make this easier?

19. How do you make this easier?

20. API as a Product (AaaP)
02
Documentatio
n
& Onboarding
0
3
Developer Experience
01
Product Thinking

21. 1 Product Thinking
Problem
Discovery
Problem
Selection
Solution
Validation
Execution

22. 2 Documentation & Onboarding

23. 3 Developer Experience

24. Continuous Management of the API Landscap
e
● Are the nodes correctly defined
?
● Are they talking to the right nodes
?
● Is the directionality of communication correct
?
● Observability Signal
s
● This evaluation needs to be done constantly, as objectives evolve,
users and their needs evolv
e
● These decisions also cannot be taken independent of
Product & Business
.

25. In Conclusion

26. Lessons
0
1
Organizations are complex
and constantly evolving as
they scale

27. Lessons
0
2
It's important to be deliberate
about this evolution and
manage the Inflection points
at different stages
0
1
Organizations are complex
and constantly evolving as
they scale

28. Lessons
0
2
It's important to be deliberate
about this evolution and
manage the Inflection points
at different stages
0
3
APIs are an effective tool
to foster the Collaboration
required for a growing
organization - Collaboration
between systems and
Collaboration between teams
0
1
Organizations are complex
and constantly evolving as
they scale

29. Lessons
0
4
Thinking API-First with a Product
Mindset allows Organizations to
prioritize what's important.
0
2
It's important to be deliberate
about this evolution and
manage the Inflection points
at different stages
0
3
APIs are an effective tool
to foster the Collaboration
required for a growing
organization - Collaboration
between systems and
Collaboration between teams
0
1
Organizations are complex
and constantly evolving as
they scale

30. Lessons
0
4
Thinking API-First with a Product
Mindset allows Organizations to
prioritize what's important.
0
2
It's important to be deliberate
about this evolution and
manage the Inflection points
at different stages
0
3
APIs are an effective tool
to foster the Collaboration
required for a growing
organization - Collaboration
between systems and
Collaboration between teams
0
5
APIs are a journey for any
organization. A well-designed
API Program enables Agility and
creates a competitive advantage
for an Organization
0
1
Organizations are complex
and constantly evolving as
they scale

31. Lessons
0
4
Thinking API-First with a Product
Mindset allows Organizations to
prioritize what's important.
0
2
It's important to be deliberate
about this evolution and
manage the Inflection points
at different stages
0
3
APIs are an effective tool
to foster the Collaboration
required for a growing
organization - Collaboration
between systems and
Collaboration between teams
0
5
APIs are a journey for any
organization. A well-designed
API Program enables Agility and
creates a competitive advantage
for an Organization
0
6
Effective Tooling that
complements an Organization's
growing API Landscape unlocks
that Agility and competitive
advantage
0
1
Organizations are complex
and constantly evolving as
they scale

32. Thank you!