API Platform Lead

Role Description

DecisionPoint seeks an API Platform Lead to oversee the enterprise API strategy, lifecycle governance, and modernization initiatives supporting a large federal and DoD-aligned mission environment. This senior role owns the API roadmap, leads feature prioritization, governs version control and lifecycle processes, and ensures API architecture aligns with enterprise, mission, and security requirements. The API Platform Lead works across engineering, cybersecurity, cloud architecture, and product management teams to ensure APIs are secure, scalable, discoverable, and optimized for enterprise integration. This position is fully remote.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Own the enterprise API strategy and roadmap, aligning capabilities with mission and business needs.
• Govern API lifecycle management including design, versioning, publishing, deprecation, and retirement.
• Manage and maintain the enterprise API catalog, ensuring accurate metadata and documentation.
• Establish API standards covering design guidelines, authentication models, naming conventions, and schema patterns.
• Collaborate closely with cybersecurity teams to ensure all APIs comply with DoD security controls and secure coding practices.
• Coordinate with developers to maintain consistency across endpoints, integration flows, and data exchange patterns.
• Lead impact assessments for breaking changes, API migrations, version updates, and integration dependencies.
• Oversee API performance, reliability testing, and continuous integration with monitoring tools.
• Maintain integration maps, API documentation, and architectural artifacts.
• Guide adoption of API gateway platforms, developer portals, and enterprise integration tooling.
• Facilitate cross-team API governance discussions, stakeholder alignment, and roadmap reviews.

Qualifications

• Must hold an active Top Secret clearance, supported by a Tier 5 background investigation.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in enterprise software engineering, API development, or integration architecture.
• Demonstrated experience overseeing API governance and lifecycle management.
• Experience leading cross-functional technical teams and enterprise integration initiatives.
• Experience with secure API design and DoD or federal cybersecurity requirements.
• Strong knowledge of RESTful API design, schema modeling, and OpenAPI/Swagger standards.
• Familiarity with API gateways, developer portals, and enterprise integration tools.
• Understanding of authentication and authorization (OAuth2, SAML, JWT).
• Deep knowledge of secure coding practices and DoD cybersecurity frameworks.
• Experience troubleshooting API performance, latency, and integration issues.
• Experience with AWS API Gateway, Lambda, or cloud-native integration designs (Preferred).
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures or microservices ecosystems (Preferred).
• Experience supporting Zero Trust-aligned data and application architectures (Preferred).
• CompTIA Security+ (Required).
• AWS Developer, Architect, or Security certification (Preferred).
• ITIL v4 Foundation (Preferred).
• API architecture or integration certifications (Preferred).

Skills

• Strong leadership and technical decision-making capabilities.
• Excellent communication and ability to collaborate across diverse technical disciplines.
• Ability to translate mission and business goals into API strategy and technical requirements.
• Strong documentation and governance discipline.
• Ability to manage multiple API initiatives simultaneously in a fast-paced mission environment.