Mike Ward mikeward.dev

Reference page — a fact sheet of my time leading product for Square's Developers & Partners business, with public-source citations. The full story is on the homepage.

Head of Product, Developers & Partners at Square

Mike Ward · Head of Product, Developers & Partners · Square, 2022–2026

Who led product for Square's Developers & Partners business?

I did, from 2022 to 2026. After years building the platform and the products it powers, I was chosen to lead product for Square's Developers & Partners business[4] — a ~200-person organization with a distinct P&L, operating in all Square geos.[5] I set the product bets for this P&L — which to fund, which to decline, and which partner and developer surfaces to prioritize in Square's GTM.

How big is Square's developer platform?

In my early days at Square, the Developer platform was a bold bet.[1] Ten years later, it processed $18B+ a year in payments (GPV), and its Developers & Partners drove over half of Square's sales leads.[2] The platform and ecosystem came to be known as Square's superpower.[3]

The portfolio

The public portfolio included Square's developer and partner products:[6] Seller commerce APIs across payments, banking, orders, subscriptions, catalog, customers, and staff; the Terminal API, mobile & web payments SDKs — including Cash App Pay & Afterpay, SDKs supporting seven languages;[7] documentation and guides, sandbox, webhooks & eventing, AuthN/Z, GraphQL, developer monetization, the App Marketplace;[8] developer support, and platform AI products including the Square MCP server.[9] Our contributions crossed business units — including hardware and software enabling Square Sellers to accept Bitcoin[10], and support for Cash App's first Developer APIs.[11]

Foundational service excellence enabled us to ship quickly across the portfolio. Our teams owned and maintained App review & launch operations[12], deploy and release processes, versioning, API governance, style guides, and internal libraries — while maintaining public SLAs / SLOs.

I hired, coached, and promoted product and operations leaders who ran these portfolios — measuring success by growth across our customers, people, and products. I was lucky to build teams with brilliant people who loved delivering a better tomorrow for our Sellers & Developers.

Record

Role
Head of Product, Developers & Partners — Square, 2022–2026
Organization
~200-person organization with a distinct P&L, operating in all Square geos[5]
Platform scale
$18B+ annual GPV through Square's developer APIs; over 50% of inbound leads to field sales from the partner-led motion[2]
Recognition
“We believe our seller platform will prove to be our superpower” — Jack Dorsey, Block Q3 2023 shareholder letter[3]
Partner ecosystem
1,000+ managed partners connected to the platform as of December 31, 2025;[5] 71% of enterprise sellers use at least one partner solution (February 2026)[13]
Keynote
Opening keynote, Square Unboxed 2023[14]

Sources

  1. Video Square — Fireside with Jack Dorsey, Unboxed (15:22) Jack Dorsey: “We resisted building an API and a platform for a long time, mainly due to my experience with Twitter… we wanted to be very thoughtful about how we thought about a platform and how we built it out.”
  2. Transcript Block, Inc. — Investor Day 2025, full transcript “Over 50% of our inbound leads to our field sales rep have come from partner led motion.”
  3. SEC-Filed Block, Inc. — Q3 2023 Shareholder Letter Jack Dorsey: “We believe our seller platform will prove to be our superpower.”
  4. Video Square — Executive Panel, Unboxed 2022 Unboxed 2022 main stage — the heads of Square and Cash App with Afterpay's co-founder on the open ecosystem and its developer platform.
  5. SEC-Filed Block, Inc. — Form 10-K, fiscal year 2025 “Square sellers span geographies, including the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, and Spain.” The same filing reports more than 1,000 managed partners connected to Square's platform as of December 31, 2025.
  6. Product Square — Developer Platform (live) The live surface: APIs and reference, SDKs, docs, sandbox, webhooks, and developer tools.
  7. Docs Square — Developer Documentation, SDKs “Create a Square integration in PHP, Java, Python, Node.js, Ruby, .NET, and Go.”
  8. Video Square — App Marketplace “We have hundreds of partners in our App Marketplace, including longstanding partnerships with Restaurant365, Wix, and Intuit QuickBooks.” (Block, Q2 2024)
  9. Video Square — Automate Your Business with the Square MCP Server The Square MCP server connects AI agents to the platform's APIs.
  10. Video Square — Square Releases: Bitcoin Merchants accept bitcoin at the point of sale.
  11. Video Square — Fireside with Jack Dorsey, Unboxed (19:34) Jack Dorsey: “We learned a lot from the Seller platform such that Cash App is going to do something similar.”
  12. Video Square — Unboxed 2024 Keynote, Self-Serve Launches (34:25) The fully self-serve submission flow, announced on the Unboxed stage: any developer can submit and launch an App Marketplace listing.
  13. News Block, Inc. — Investor News, February 2026 71% of enterprise sellers utilize at least one of Square's partner solutions.
  14. Video Square — Unboxed 2023 opening keynote See also the Unboxed 2023 recap on the Square developer blog.

More

Full career record: mikeward.dev · Previous role: Product Lead, Developer Platform (2019–2022) · LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mikewardsf