From Architect to Product Manager

This week I moved from being the Architect responsible for our API SaaS offerings to being a Technical Product Manager for IBM API Connect.

This is something I've been exploring for a while. Over the last few years I've been exposed to more of the product side, as SaaS has had a natural affinity to data-driven thinking, product-led growth and pricing. Meeting technical product managers who came to IBM with the webMethods acquisition and attending the team education last year was probably the turning point that made this something I wanted to do.

Technology roles are changing rapidly as AI spreads across organisations and it feels more important than ever to be at the intersection between customers and the product - to apply my experience and judgement to shape what we build.

I've worked with numerous customers and partners using API Connect through my time in SRE and Architecture, seeing how they use the product and the places it fits in their real workflows (and the places things aren't going so smoothly). I am keen to take these insights alongside my experiences running the cloud offerings to help define where the product goes next. I will lean on my engineering experience in making this possible, advocating the value of the invisible work, stability and reliability, as the foundation our new features are built on.

In the team I will be product owner for API Studio, our API development experience, but I'll be working across the portfolio.

What does your day-to-day API development experience look like, and what is the single biggest thing you wish were different? Let me know.