Full Stack Software Engineer, API Client - San Francisco

The Opportunity

The API client is the core beating heart of the Postman product experience. It is what many users perceive as the entirety of Postman (although there is so much more!), and we have ambitious goals in 2024 and beyond about delighting developers more with the API client as well as simplifying this central product experience. We have three thematic goals for that we plan to achieve, and hopefully you will have a hand in doing so.

1. Delight the Developer. The developer is critical to the success of Postman, and we intend to get closer to them, both in GitHub with quick replies and tight feedback loops, but even more importantly with our feature delivery, addressing long-standing requests and continuing to differentiate on our core product experience.
2. Simplify request sending and debugging. Postman has grown into an incredibly powerful tool, but great tools are simple for power users and new users alike. We’ll need to pare down this experience to the essentials and progressively disclose complexity to powerful features when users need them, and no sooner.
3. Build the multi-protocol future. We have spent the last few years building new request protocols (like GraphQL, gRPC, and Websockets), and in 2024 we’ll more tightly integrate these protocols into the full Postman experience. 

We have built a ubiquitous, loved developer product that is a crucial piece of the broader Postman experience. We are responsible for everything around building the engine that is centrally responsible for enabling users to send and debug requests, regardless of protocol. Nearly 80% of Postman’s users utilize the work of the API Client team. We have plans to double the engineering organization in the next year and if you want an early seat on the rocket ship, this is the right place to be.

Who are we

Postman is the world’s leading API platform, used by more than 30 million developers and 500,000 organizations, including 98% of the Fortune 500. Postman is helping developers and professionals across the globe build the API-first world by simplifying each step of the API lifecycle and streamlining collaboration—enabling users to create better APIs, faster.

The company is headquartered in San Francisco and has an office in Bangalore, where it was founded. Postman is privately held, with funding from Battery Ventures, BOND, Coatue, CRV, Insight Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners. Learn more at postman.com or connect with Postman on Twitter via @getpostman.

P.S: We highly recommend reading The "API-First World" graphic novel to understand the bigger picture and our vision at Postman.

What you’ll do

To achieve our goals, we’ll need a talented, experienced, and thoughtful fullstack engineer who cares deeply about the details and spends time building user interfaces that delight users. As indicated previously, 2024 is a year where we want to simplify and pare down the core experience we deliver on the API client, and so we need an engineer who can be somewhat self-directed and who has great taste, judgment, and can iterate (and ship!) quickly to achieve the iterative simplification that we will achieve with the API client product. To quote Frank Slootman (former Snowflake CEO):

“Strategy is overrated and execution is severely underrated. Mostly all companies plan well and mostly all companies fail at execution. Make execution the king in your company.”

– Frank Slootman, Amp it Up

Execution is key on the API client team. We’ll need someone who relentlessly leads by example on execution and ships impactful changes regularly to the user experience of Postman. We’ll progress and continuously improve towards achieving our goals and metrics and most importantly we’ll deliver an increasingly delightful product experience that developers love to use. You should expect to:

• Own and deliver. Deliver improvements to the API client core product experience that help us achieve our goals around simplicity
• Deliver iterative value. Deliver small chunks of iterative value towards simplicity, bit-by-bit, and not a sweeping re-design
• Own end-to-end workflows. Own end-to-end and understand core workflows, driving improvement to them and delivering a re-designed and simpler experience (initial targets: using variables, error resolution, and keyboard navigability)
• Deeply understand the user. Collaborate and work with end users (developers!) using Postman to understand their core workflows and then use that knowledge to improve our product
• Learn and grow. Broaden your knowledge of API client and the domain over time, starting with simplicity but eventually branching out into driving improvement to core workflows, sending requests across protocols (GraphQL, gRPC, etc.), and 
• Collaborate across boundaries and geographies. Collaborate on team processes to streamline collaboration across US and India team members

About you

Must have:

• 3+ years of experience of full stack development; Depth and quality of experience is more important than number of years
• Track record of delivering impactful and engaging user experiences that delight users
• Deep expertise in building the modern web with JavaScript / Typescript, HTML, and CSS. You likely have used libraries or frameworks like React or Next.js, but we care much more about the fundamentals than the tech stack.
• Excellent communication skills. We’re a remote-first team and we’re going to be moving fast together. Good communication is key.
• Detail oriented. We have to care about the details, and while we don’t expect you to be a designer, you need to care about the product experience that our teams are shipping.
• Customer obsession. As we are a core product with years of muscle memory, we need an engineer who is able and willing to leverage the voice of the customer to expedite decision making, develop conviction, and most importantly delight our user.
• Based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience working in a React application with state management tools like MobX
• Experience working on B2B product and/or developer tools
• Experience with API design and development
• Existing user of Postman (or other inferior clients) 🙂

Our values

At Postman, we create with the same curiosity that we see in our users. We value transparency & honest communication about not only successes, but also failures. In our work, we focus on specific goals that add up to a larger vision. Our inclusive work culture ensures that everyone is valued equally as important pieces of our final product. We are dedicated to delivering the best products we can.

What else?

If the role is based in the greater San Francisco area, and the reasonably estimated salary for this role ranges from $177,607 to $240,292, plus a competitive equity package. Actual compensation is based on the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition to our pay-on-performance philosophy, we offer a comprehensive set of benefits, including full medical coverage, flexible PTO, wellness reimbursement, and a monthly lunch stipend. Salaries will vary outside of the listed metropolitan areas & the U.S.

Equal opportunity

Postman is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status. Headhunters and recruitment agencies may not submit resumes/CVs through this website or directly to managers. Postman does not accept unsolicited headhunter and agency resumes. Postman will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company that does not have a signed agreement with Postman.