Mike Ward mikeward.dev

Reference page — a fact sheet of my developer platform work at Square, with public-source citations. The full story is on the homepage.

Product Lead, Square Developer Platform

Mike Ward · Product Lead, Developer Platform · Square, 2019–2022

Who led Square's Developer Platform from 2019 to 2022?

I did. In 2019 I was asked to expand focus in the Developers organization, leading products across Square's public API portfolio and supporting AuthN/Z systems. By 2021 the public offering spanned all business domains and more than 30 APIs.[8]

The platform, in this era

In 2019 I was asked to expand focus in the Developers organization, leading products across Square's public API portfolio and supporting AuthN/Z systems. We started with a hard look at our offerings to refine focus on Square Sellers' greatest needs.

Sellers want seamless experiences between their POS and essential services. By enabling Developers to deliver apps and embedded integrations directly to Square Sellers — retailers could connect to their preferred shipping services, restaurants to on-demand delivery services,[1] and more. This engagement model scaled across Square's Seller verticals.[2]

Larger Sellers often need solutions unique to their business.[3] By delivering Developer tools from Square's broader commerce offerings (Square Online,[4] appointments, inventory, customers, staff, loyalty, catalog[5]) — Sellers who needed custom integrations could build their own or hire an agency[6]. POWDR, for example, ran commerce across its ski resorts on nearly all of the platform's APIs.[7] This was a direction many of us set, still guiding the platform strategy.[7]

In this era we also scaled how Square built, shipped, and maintained APIs. By decentralizing ownership, product teams across Square designed, shipped, and improved their own public APIs — resulting in a public offering spanning all business domains and more than 30 APIs.[8] The Developers team provided standards, style guides, review processes, shepherding, and governance to scale this model across all Square business units. Along the way, we shipped GraphQL[9] while driving AuthN/Z initiatives.[10]

Record

Role
Product Lead, Developer Platform — Square, 2019–2022
Scope
Square's public API portfolio and supporting AuthN/Z systems
Offering
More than 30 commerce APIs spanning all business domains, per Block's FY 2021 Form 10-K[8]
Adoption
In 2020, approximately half of Square's mid-market GPV came from sellers with integrations to the developer platform[7]
Enterprise examples
SoFi Stadium — Square hardware, software, and the Catalog, Orders, and Payments APIs;[3] POWDR — nearly all developer APIs across its ski resorts[7]
Shipped
GraphQL (public alpha, May 2022);[9] OAuth revocation webhooks and short-lived, limited-scope authorization;[10] Snippets API, the first API for Square Online[4]

Sources

  1. Product Square — App Marketplace, Delivery & Orders category “Offer delivery and order fulfillment from your business to reach more customers and grow sales.”
  2. Video Square — Grow Your Business with App Marketplace (Unboxed) Unboxed business track: case studies of real Sellers growing their businesses on App Marketplace integrations.
  3. SEC-Filed Square, Inc. — Q3 2021 Shareholder Letter “SoFi Stadium uses Square Point of Sale, Square Register, Square Terminal, Square Team Management, Catalog API, Orders API, and Payments API.”
  4. Video Square — Introducing the Snippets API “The first API for Square Online” — developers extend Sellers' websites directly. See also the May 2021 announcement.
  5. Press Square — Orders API Press Release, August 2019 “Square's Developer Platform is expanding beyond payments to serve all aspects of commerce — from orders to customer management, to inventory and beyond.”
  6. Product Square — Square Specialists “Work with our trusted agency partners who specialize in ecommerce, marketing, and software development…”
  7. SEC-Filed Square, Inc. — Q4 2020 Shareholder Letter “In 2020, approximately half of our mid-market GPV came from sellers with integrations to our developer platform.” The same letter: “POWDR values our unique insight into customer behavior and data, using nearly all of our developer APIs and Team Management software.”
  8. SEC-Filed Block, Inc. — Form 10-K, fiscal year 2021 “Commerce APIs include more than 30 commerce APIs, through which developers can create and manage orders, subscriptions, product catalogs, inventory, customer profiles, employees, loyalty programs, gift cards and more…”
  9. Product Square — Developer Forums, GraphQL Alpha The public alpha announcement of Square's GraphQL API, May 2022.
  10. Product Square — Developer Blog, OAuth Revocation Webhooks OAuth revocation webhook events — with short-lived, limited-scope authorization, the platform's developer-security push.

More

Full career record: mikeward.dev · Next role: Head of Product, Developers & Partners (2022–2026) · Previous role: Senior PM, Payments Platform (2016–2019)