API Connect Designer / Architect

About the Company

Valleysoft is a provider of IT services offering enterprise-level technology solutions, software development, process management, and infrastructure support worldwide. The company operates in complex business settings to help organizations design, build, and maintain systems that ensure critical operations run securely and efficiently.

Role Overview

This position specializes in crafting enterprise-class API management solutions tailored for complex integration environments. The API Connect Designer / Architect will lead the definition of architecture, standards, and governance to establish scalable, secure, and dependable API ecosystems. Collaboration with architecture, engineering, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and DevOps teams is essential.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and architect enterprise API management solutions leveraging IBM API Connect.
• Create scalable, secure, and high-availability API platform architectures.
• Manage the entire API lifecycle including design, development, deployment, versioning, monitoring, and decommissioning.
• Develop enterprise-wide API standards, design guidelines, naming conventions, and reusable templates.
• Implement and enforce API security policies like authentication, authorization, rate limiting, throttling, and access control.
• Configure and manage API Gateway policies and security mechanisms.
• Design API integrations with internal systems, external platforms, and third-party services.
• Establish API architecture paradigms aligned with enterprise integration and technology standards.
• Develop governance frameworks, policies, and best practices for APIs.
• Review API designs to ensure adherence to architecture and governance requirements.
• Collaborate with enterprise and solution architects to integrate API solutions into the overarching enterprise architecture.
• Work closely with application development, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and DevOps teams.
• Analyze business and technical requirements and translate them into scalable API and integration architectures.
• Design API security using standards such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, and related protocols.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, IT, Information Systems, Engineering, or related fields.
• 10 to 12 years of professional experience in API management and integration architecture within large enterprise environments.
• Practical expertise in IBM API Connect for designing API management solutions and customizing API Gateway policies.
• Strong skills in designing RESTful APIs, working with SOAP web services, and supporting microservices architectures.
• Competence connecting APIs to databases, middleware, applications, and external systems in enterprise backend integrations.
• Experience modernizing legacy integration systems by exposing them as modern APIs.
• In-depth understanding of HTTP/HTTPS protocols, and data formats such as JSON and XML.
• Hands-on implementation of API security controls including authentication, authorization, rate limiting, throttling, and routing.
• Design experience with secure API architectures based on OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, TLS/SSL, and mutual TLS.
• Integration of API platforms with enterprise IAM solutions or identity providers.
• Background in Banking or FinTech domains with familiarity designing API security controls to mitigate common API threats.
• Experience implementing enterprise API governance frameworks, including API design standards, naming schemes, documentation, versioning, and reusable API patterns.
• Oversight of API lifecycle governance from design and approval to deployment, monitoring, versioning, and retirement.
• Experience conducting formal architecture and design reviews and navigating multi-stakeholder API governance and approval processes.