API World 2018

Around four years ago, we began the journey at PayPal to transform all of PayPal’s core capabilities into a platform of discoverable, well-encapsulated, reusable API-driven products. We have used a customer-oriented approach to go from a very monolithic and siloed architecture to a much more loosely coupled set of over 150 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, the processes and the tools that we put together, our communication with the stakeholders, and the definition and measurement of success. An unflinching focus on developer experience and satisfaction has been key to our success, and it continues to shape how we manage this transformational program today. While every company has its own unique culture and challenges, many of the very valuable and insightful lessons that we have learned, and the approaches that we have utilized, are applicable to other companies that are trying to chart the same course.