Integration Specialist

DataDrone runs a Zoho implementation practice that ships outcomes in 45 days. Not a license shop. Not a generalist consultancy. Every engagement starts with one Hero use case and ends with that use case running in production — owned by the client, with the runbook to grow it.

This role is the wire-builder. The person who owns the boundary between Zoho and everything outside it — and writes the runbook the client's IT lead can use at 3am six months after we're gone.

What You'll Do

You design and ship integrations that survive Mondays. You wire Zoho to external systems — finance platforms, logistics APIs, marketing tools, custom in-house apps — with auth that doesn't decay, retries that don't multiply duplicates, dead letter queues that catch what the happy path missed, and monitoring that surfaces yellow before the client does.

You partner daily with the Zoho SME during the integration window. SME defines what Zoho emits; you own the wire. You coordinate with Client IT on credentials and the security review. You hand the client's IT lead a runbook they can actually use.

You will not be wiring drag-and-drop Zapier connectors and calling it done. You will be making intentional trade-offs between Zoho Flow, low-code middleware, custom Catalyst functions, and Marketplace extensions — and defending those trade-offs in the design review.

Daily Rhythm (How You Operate)

• Morning standup (15 min); integration health check before anything else.
• Mid‑day build block; SME pulse on payload schemas if in‑flight.
• EOD: dashboard glance, two‑line update to EM, tomorrow's blocker flagged.
• Cultural maxim: "The wire is the contract. Idempotent or it didn’t happen."
• Timezone Flexibility — clients pick NA / EMEA / APAC; we mirror.

Key Responsibilities

• Own integration design — auth, payloads, retry policy, monitoring — through Day‑7 signoff.
• Wire Zoho external systems via the right mechanism (Zoho Flow, Marketplace, custom middleware, Catalyst).
• Implement OAuth flows; vault credentials; build and test refresh paths.
• Write idempotent, error‑handled, monitored integration code — production‑grade, not "works in sandbox."
• Build webhook receivers and event handlers on both sides of the wire.
• Stand up the integration health dashboard and alerting; close the loop on every failure.
• Author the Integration Runbook the client's IT lead will use post-handover.
• Coordinate with Client IT on credentials, security review, and the Day‑45 rotation walkthrough.

What We’re Looking For

• Real depth building integrations between systems — APIs, webhooks, OAuth, middleware.
• Hands‑on with at least two of: Zoho APIs (REST + Webhooks), Zoho Flow, Zoho Catalyst, Zoho Marketplace SDK.
• You’ve shipped at least three production integrations that included idempotency, retry policies, and dead letter queues.
• You write runbooks as you build, not after.
• You vault credentials on day one. Always.

Bonus Points For

• Zoho Developer / Catalyst certification.
• Experience with the Zoho APIs at scale (Bulk API, rate-limit-aware design).
• Custom middleware in Node.js / Python / Go.
• Experience handing integrations to client IT teams who didn't write them (the bar of "client‑maintainable" matters).

The Mindset We Hire For

• Idempotent or it didn’t happen. Every write. No exceptions.
• Tokens decay silently. Monitoring is part of the build, not an afterthought.
• The runbook is the handover. If Client IT can’t use it, the integration isn’t done.
• Smallest mechanism that fits. Zoho Flow before middleware. Middleware before custom code.
• Vault credentials on day one. Never in code, never in a Slack thread, never in a Postman collection committed to a repo.
• Sandbox first, always. Production credentials are downstream.

Success in This Role

• 30 days First integration shipped clean (auth, payloads, idempotency, monitoring, runbook); onboarded to practice middleware patterns.
• 60 days Two parallel integration tracks; runbook cited internally as a template; one reusable pattern contributed.

Tools You’ll Use

Zoho APIs (REST, Bulk, Webhooks), Zoho Flow, Zoho Catalyst, Zoho Marketplace, Postman / Bruno, GitHub, Make / n8n / Workato (when they fit), Node.js / Python (when they don’t), credentials vault, Sentry / Datadog / CloudWatch, AI Copilot loaded with the practice KB.

Why Join Us

Build integrations that actually survive past Day 45. Own the wire end‑to‑end — design through monitoring through runbook handover — with full lane and full credit. Hand over runbooks that the client's IT lead reads at 3am and says "OK, I've got this." Timezone Flexibility — clients pick NA / EMEA / APAC; we mirror.

Self-Check Before You Apply

• Can you write a Zoho webhook receiver with idempotency, retry, and a dead letter queue — without copy‑pasting a tutorial?
• Will you vault credentials on day one, even when the engagement is moving fast?
• Can you read an external API's docs, measure the rate limit yourself, and design within it?
• Will you write the rotation runbook the same day you wire the OAuth flow?
• Do you ship integration work where monitoring