apidays LIVE Australia 2021 - Accelerating Digital September 15 & 16, 2021 Modernising development using API First & Lessons Learned Dean Baker, Head of Engineering & Shane Lee, Staff Engineer at PEXA

1. Modernising development using API First
& lessons learnt
© Property Exchange Australia Limited 2021 1
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API First, Change Management and tooling; Lessons learnt building out best practices,
guidelines and automation across an organisation. A focus on education & uplift, making
API Development more accessible and standard across the team by evangelising and
improving the developer experience.

2. Introductions
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Dean Baker – Head of Engineering Shane Lee – Staff Engineer

3. Agenda
> Our API History
> Ways of Working
> Execution
> Wrap up
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4. PEXA
Proudly helping more
than 20,000 families
a week settle safely
on their homes.
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5. History
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2010
Build
Commences
2014
First public
API
2017
Swagger
Introduced
2019
Developer
Portal
2020
API First
Begins

6. API Days 6
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Ways of Working

7. Stream / Domain Teams
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Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Blatant Team Topologies reference
• Existing
• Cross functional
• Delivery focused
• BAU

8. Tiger Teams
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Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Blatant Team Topologies reference
Dedicated
API
Team

9. Tiger Teams
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Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Blatant Team Topologies reference
Dedicated
API
Team
• Formation of experts to drive an outcome
• Keep as close to the customer as possible
• Work independently of delivery pressure
• Trailblaze

10. Functional Teams – Cognitive Load
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Domain Knowledge
Prioritisation
Customer Support
Technical
Support
Unfair
Context
Switching

11. API Enabling Team – The What
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• Focus on DX
• Documenting guidelines, guardrails
• Standardisation
• Empowering and uplifting
• Learning & Development
Blatant Team Topologies reference
Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
API
COE
Dedicated
API
Team

12. API Enabling Team – The How
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Blatant Team Topologies reference
Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
Stream-aligned team
API
COE
Dedicated
API
Team
• Embed with teams
• Beware the Ivory Tower
• Show what “good looks like"
• Zero tolerance for debt
• Deliver, but do not be delivery centric
• Your customers are the other teams

13. Enabling Team – The Roadshow
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14. Enabling Team – The Roadshow
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15. Execution
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16. Enabling Team – Documentation
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Autonomy with alignment

17. Dogfooding
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Photo by Kabo on Unsplash

18. “API first” lifecycle and tooling
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Design Implement Validate
• Discovery, problem solve and
analyze : Miro
• Design API spec (OAS):
Insomnia
• API guidelines
• API governance/Internal API
review
• Early partner feedback
• Beta testing (selected
partners)
• Server stubs: Open api generator
• Client SDKS: Open api generator
• Code snippets: Kong httpsnippet
• Mocking/Sandbox envs: Mockoon
• Doc: Dev portal/Insomnia
• APIOps approach APIGW: TBD
• API Linting: Spectral
• Shift test left: TestContainers
• Perf: k6 (Grafana)

19. Open api generator
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“Invest in the open source projects you depend on”

20. Wrapping up
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21. Key Lessons
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• Tiger/Functional teams are a good start
• Embed and evangelise to succeed
• Engage heavily with product & delivery to align and uplift the teams
• Living documentation is vital
• A smooth developer experience is a must

22. API Days 22
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The Mantra
“Go Slow
To
Go Fast”

23. Next steps for us
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• API First has given us clarity on domains
• Leading us to think harder on team structure and alignment
• Leading us to think harder on events
• Long tail of getting everyone up to speed on API First WoW

24. API Days 24
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Questions