1.
API design is where
culture and tech meet
each other
Aleksei Akimov

2.
About me
Aleksei Akimov
Head of API at Adyen
Amsterdam
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-akimov/
https://twitter.com/AlexeyAkimov
API strategy
API governance & design
Technical documentation
Developer relations
Dev tooling
Developer Experience 🧡

3.
API as a language
API
API
👩💼 🧑💼

4.
Adyen platform

5.
Point of Sale & eCommerce
eCommerce
Local acquiring on a global scale

6.
Scalable
architecture
exponential growth

7.
xw

8.
Adyen APIs

9.
Dozens of public APIs
Thousands of internal APIs
Technology
Security
Scalability
Availability
...
AdyenAPIlandscape
Web, mobile, terminals/etc
Hundreds of thousands
API calls per minute
Private cloud distributed
across EMEA, NA, APAC
and LATAM
€303.6 BN processed in 2020
exponential growth
Available 24/7

10.
Complexity of
API management

11.
Payments never sleep:
Availability 24/7

12.
Existing customers
& history of decisions

13.
Autonomous teams:
Freedom 🧡

14.
APIgovernanceisachallenge

15.
APIdecisionsareneverpurely
technicalornon-technical

16.
Embedding API design
into the company culture

17.
Culture is
“how we do things here”

18.
We prioritize current merchant
experience over future features
To think like the merchant we go
meet them
We design for 20x
Expose your work early
We are all designers, architects,
coders, testers, security officers
and operations engineers
We all make mistakes, but we seek
help as soon as we find out
You own when, where, and how
your code goes live
Your code should be
understandable at 4am under
stress
We embrace new technology
when it has clear benefits
Our tech stack is open source or
built in-house

19.
We prioritize current merchant
experience over future features
To think like the merchant we go
meet them
We design for 20x
Expose your work early
We are all designers, architects,
coders, testers, security officers
and operations engineers
We all make mistakes, but we seek
help as soon as we find out
You own when, where, and how
your code goes live
Your code should be
understandable at 4am under
stress
We embrace new technology
when it has clear benefits
Our tech stack is open source or
built in-house

20.
API decisions are complex and
impactful:
- require diverse knowledge
- should be made fast
- definition of done

21.
Your {public} API is "done" when...
it is used in production {by merchants}

22.
Road to successful
API governance

23.
API Review Group / API Board
API Design API Reviews
API ideation and feedback,
before development.
Evaluate the use of existing
APIs and come up with
improvements
Style guide & tools
Create a style guide and drive
API tool adoption.

24.
API Review Tool: Stoplight

25.
API Style guide

26.
Enforce style guide with linting

27.
OpenAPI, contract testing and design-first
JSON YAML

28.
Evolution and versioning strategy

29.
Value of good tooling
If you want developers to use your
frameworks in a certain way, you must
invest your time in making it easier for
them

30.
API
design
API
consumers
Collaboration is a key:
Stoplight
OpenAPI
API-design first or API-
design-ASAP
Always be in between
Educate, measure, listen to
feedback, improve
Developer Advocacy is a key
API
development
Evaluate the entire A-Z API
lifecycle
Automate/support all the
steps
Remove bottlenecks
Enforce the style guide with
linting

31.
You never know
what's next

32.
Thank you!