November 2017 Summaries

A developer at Postman, who was the company's first engineering hire in 2015, shares insights on their journey and experiences working there. They discuss the technology they use, highlight recent projects they have been involved with, and offer insights into the Postman app, emphasizing its utility and features. Additionally, the developer provides life pro tips for the Postman community and shares a personal tidbit about themselves. The company is actively hiring, inviting others to join their team.

Postman, a popular tool used by over 4 million people globally, enhances employability in a variety of roles by streamlining API development processes and fostering better collaboration. It is particularly valued in API engineering, where it serves as an API development environment akin to an IDE for software development, allowing engineers to efficiently describe, share, and collaborate on APIs. Testers utilize Postman for frontend and backend testing, automation, and mock server scenarios, while DevOps engineers integrate it with CI/CD pipelines for API monitoring. Product Managers and Sales Engineers leverage Postman for API exploration, testing, and integration demos, often using its collaboration features to streamline team efforts. Additionally, Support Engineers and Developer Evangelists use Postman for troubleshooting and live demonstrations, while Technical Writers employ it for documenting APIs. Furthermore, Postman assists non-technical staff in understanding company technology, signaling self-sufficiency and curiosity to potential employers. Overall, proficiency in Postman is a significant asset across different roles, making candidates more competitive and capable of handling API-related tasks effectively.

Postman monitors, often associated with ensuring API endpoints are operational, offer diverse applications beyond traditional uses, as demonstrated by one user's innovative approach to automating plant watering. By setting up a system involving a hose, valve, Arduino server, and Postman collection, the user was able to automate the watering of rooftop plants. A POST request with password protection replaced a vulnerable GET request, and a Postman monitor was used to regularly trigger watering, initially resulting in over-watering. The solution evolved to include conditional logic, watering only on specific days and checking soil moisture levels with a hygrometer. The process illustrates how Postman can creatively extend beyond its typical scope, encouraging users to explore its versatility for personal projects.

Postman version 5.3 introduces significant updates to API authorization processes, addressing user challenges such as stale authorization headers and limited authorization types, and enhancing the overall ease of use for both new and experienced users. The update includes new authorization types like Bearer Auth and NTLM Auth, improvements to existing types such as Digest Auth and OAuth 2.0, and introduces additional OAuth 2.0 grant types like implicit and password credentials. Postman now automatically saves authorization information with requests to prevent using outdated data, no longer saves authorization headers and parameters to enhance security, and provides manual options to add tokens. Additionally, Postman has improved how it handles header and query parameters by adding them automatically to outgoing requests without saving them in the original request, allowing users to choose which to retain. These enhancements are available exclusively in Postman native apps, with a focus on maintaining up-to-date and secure authorization processes.

Postman has transitioned from its Chrome app to native apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux, following Google's decision to end support for Chrome apps on these platforms. The native apps, which offer all the features of the Chrome app and more, are now the focus of Postman's development efforts, with new features and enhancements to be introduced exclusively in these versions. Users of the Postman Chrome app are encouraged to migrate to the native apps, a process that is quick and allows for automatic syncing of their data if they are signed in to a Postman account. For those not signed in or without sync enabled, data can be exported from the Chrome app and imported into the native app. As the API ecosystem evolves, the native apps provide improved performance and functionality, making them a superior alternative to the original Chrome app.