API Experts - APIs That Build APIs

Skyflow is a data vault service accessed through an API, focusing on securely storing and managing sensitive data such as PII and KYC information. The company's API is integral to its product, allowing clients to create, manage, and interact with their data vaults, which include robust features like encryption and data governance. API development at Skyflow involves careful taxonomy design to accommodate varying customer schemas and ensure usability across different user personas. The company emphasizes a rigorous approach to maintaining consistent and up-to-date documentation and guidelines to facilitate API development and minimize friction for developers using the API. Challenges include balancing security measures, like dynamic JWT token generation, which can create user friction, against the need for a seamless developer experience. Skyflow opts for RESTful APIs for broader accessibility, with potential future consideration for GraphQL. As a product manager, Akshat Agrawal highlights the importance of using the API to identify friction points and the need to make strategic trade-offs to align API functionality with long-term product goals while maintaining a focus on reducing the time to first successful API interaction to enhance developer productivity. The discussion also touches on the broader context of developer experience, emphasizing productivity and the efficient use of APIs in achieving project goals, while also expressing interest in exploring new technological fields like climate tech.