Creating APIs isn’t just about writing code – it’s about collaboration, governance, and delivering seamless experiences that empower teams and businesses alike. As businesses scale and software ecosystems expand, API complexity grows – introducing challenges in governance, security, and visibility. To stay competitive, teams need a unified, developer-friendly solution that ensures APIs are high-quality, discoverable, and secure from day one.

We need these features ASAP… Our competition rolled out this functionality last year… We can’t afford to push it to the next release… Ugh! If you manage an engineering team those sentiments may hit too close to home; we get it. The pressure to accelerate development cycles is real. It’s not just about keeping up – it’s about staying competitive and unlocking faster revenue growth. But how do you move faster without sacrificing quality?

It’s lunchtime, and you’re trying to complete a purchase, send money from your bank, or order a car to pick you up and bring you back to the office from your phone. But just as you hit confirm – the app freezes, glitches, or shuts down entirely. What should have been a quick and seamless transaction becomes a headache. Like most people, these frustrations can cause you to want to throw your phone and even switch providers.

Note: A version of this article was originally published on CIO Influence. Burnout is widespread in the world of software engineering. According to a 2023 report, 73% of developers have experienced burnout at least once in their careers, and work-life balance has been cited as a key driver of developer satisfaction. Luckily, there are tools and strategies that teams can implement to reduce mental load, prevent burnout, and improve overall developer wellbeing.

Visual glitches frustrate users and put the reputation of your business at risk. When people interact with an app, they expect a seamless experience. But when frame rates drop, scrolling becomes jittery, or screens freeze, frustration sets in – causing users to abandon your app and take their business elsewhere. SmartBear Insight Hub empowers developers to create high-quality user experiences on their applications. Performance monitoring is a key part of this process.

The financial services (FinServ) industry is constantly evolving and scaling, with global investment hitting $210 billion in 2022. Digital transformation has brought millions of customers online, and their demand for a smooth, secure, and responsive experience from financial institutions is growing fast. As the industry grows, challenges are inevitable – it seems like every week there’s a story in the news about an outage or data breach at a financial institution.