Championing Diversity In The API Community

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an area the tech industry has attempted to address for years. Although companies have recently heightened their focus on DEI initiatives, many areas still need improvement. For instance, as we’ve covered before, women and non-native English speakers often face an uphill battle in tech.

At Platform Summit 2024, Claire Barrett will talk about ‘API Team Diversity for API Creativity.’

In the world of APIs, the state of DEI is mixed, says Claire Barrett, Director and Founder of APIsFirst. According to Barrett, DEI should be viewed as an opportunity to improve business and technology outcomes. It’s also something organizations must continually participate in rather than instituting a single initiative.

Ahead of this year’s Platform Summit, I caught up with Barrett to learn a bit about her history of becoming an advocate for change in tech and in the API community. She also shared some helpful takeaways for encouraging a DEI mindset in development and API groups.

Check out the interview for some action items organizations can take to elevate the role of women in APIs and enhance diversity in general. Also, be sure to attend Platform Summit 2024 to catch her session and other talks about what it means to create API platforms that are usable for all.

Could you tell us a bit about your background, your current work, and how you became a champion for inclusivity, specifically for women in tech and leadership?

I help organizations get value from their API investments. My background is over 30 years of experience consulting and/or being consulted to, usually in large or highly complex and globally recognizable organizations. This has led to specializing in shaping and leading work that helps leaders and teams manage change. Typically work where they’re seeking to adopt (at scale) the tech, the processes, and the ways of working that have underpinned the success of “big tech.”

I doubled down on APIs and API-enabled strategies and teams as a subset. This is because getting good at APIs means getting good at all the complementary digital practices, tech, and ways of working that organizations want to improve as part of their enterprise strategies.

Well-designed and engineered API products call for inside-out and outside-in thinking… and collaboration. All are easier with diverse thinking applied. This complements my interest in helping people and teams do their best work. Together.

I call myself an “accidental feminist” because for the first 15 years of my career (as an engineering student, then IT professional), I was usually the only woman in the room, or at least very much in the minority. I didn’t feel disadvantaged until starting to work in an environment where female colleagues kept asking me for help and guidance. Then I started learning a lot more about it. Over the next 15 years, I gradually became more involved to the point where I’d now label myself as an active champion for change.

Tech is an industry still trying to improve its gender balance, yet still has a lot of work to do. What is the state of things in our smaller subset of tech, the API community?

Mixed. We don’t have quantitative research to back this up, but anecdotally, we find some API-related roles (such as API product manager, API C4E lead, or DevRel/community-builder) are ones where female talent can often really shine and get recognized and rewarded accordingly.

We also find that some of these people (who identify as female) may be in a minority in their company in terms of their role (which may not be widely understood)… AND they’re the only woman. This can be a lonely place, so the Women in APIs (WIAs) community has been great for people to connect with peers at other organizations.

For deep technical expertise with APIs, such as integration architecture roles, women are less represented than the industry at large. I believe there are multiple reasons for this.

How can API-focused projects and other related software initiatives better work toward these diversity and inclusivity goals? What are some general tips for bringing diversity into API development teams?

First, acknowledge the problem as an opportunity for better business, customer, and technology outcomes rather than viewing it as a problem to be “fixed” with one action (such as an initiative, policy, or appointment to head up a role).

Next, develop a shared view as a team about what it would be like to work in a more inclusive environment. Ask what actions the group (and each individual) can take to personalize and make it real for them.

Do the homework: research and learn from what’s out there in the public domain to understand the issue, and give colleagues time and space to get comfortable working and thinking differently.

Have conversations in and outside the workplace with people who identify as female: What is it like? How could it be easier? What would it take to be a place where more diverse teams would want to work?

At Platform Summit, you’ll be talking about creating more diverse API teams for creativity. What are the business benefits of designing more inclusive APIs?

Check the research. I’ll touch on some headline data and stats — there’s plenty out there if people want to learn more.

How could a focus on team diversity help improve the developer experience for API consumers?

Not all API consumers are developers (and even less so as they continue to expand and become AI-discoverable). More diversity means a greater likelihood of surfacing real API consumer needs earlier.

Plus, not all API consumers have your knowledge of the systems, data, or terminology that you’re familiar with. So, a more diverse set of perspectives at the design stage increases the likelihood of surfacing this information.

Deeply understanding your API consumers helps you understand customer behavior. It helps you see their pain points and builds more empathy and connection. This applies “design thinking” to the humans who are behind discovering, understanding, and using an API in the way the product owner intended.

Without giving away too much from your upcoming talk, what can attendees expect from your presentation?

A smattering of stats. A healthy dose of stories. Practical takeaways to take back to the workplace. To be provoked. Gently.

Why are you excited about Platform Summit 2024?!

I’m looking forward to hearing others’ talks and seeing what the community is up to locally. Also, the location. The Nordics represent a global role model for institutionalized equality and humanity. There are some great examples of local initiatives with impact (to help change opinions and conversations) with origins in the region. Examples include All That We Share, The Human Library® and The IWD campaign by Finansförbundet.