# Designing a Developer Platform
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/blog/designing-a-developer-platform-a-surprisingly-valuable-experience/index.md

Authors: Amin Nassiri. 5 reasons why non-techy folks should work on a developer platform When I joined Mastercard as a user experience designer in 2016, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was assigned to the team rebuilding the platform for Mastercard APIs, a field quite foreign to me. My previous experiences were all about consumer experiences; products I could explain to my parents in one sentence. Two years later, I'm very grateful for the experience. I would definitely encourage other designers and product folks to work on a developer platform, and here's why. People building the platform are extremely passionate about it Engineers love building stuff, and take pride in their work. But there is something different about the engineers I work with these days, and it's how passionate they are about the platform they are building. The technical members of the API team at Mastercard are very much engaged with the nuances of the UX design. I believe it stems from the fact they are ultimately the users of these sort of platforms. Recently, a member of design team proposed changes to the typography across Mastercard Developers site. I figured we can push the changes to the staging environment without asking for dev time, and see if we like it. I was surprised how fast most engineers picked up on it and messaged me with their feedbacks. I find it refreshing to see engineers care about these sorts of details. Exposure to the latest tech It's expected that if you work in the tech industry, you keep up with the latest and greatest whilst keeping an eye on future trends. Let's be honest, it can be exhausting. How much of your spare time can be spent on tech blogs or experimenting with latest tools? #js-fatigue As part of the course of daily work, I research and experiment with the latest tech. Recently, we launched Solutions where we expose how our APIs can be combined to create new and novel consumer experiences. While building those, I also got the opportunity to dig in deeper to APIs offered by other innovative companies. Others innovate on top of what you build In a recent post, our product lead used Lego bricks as an analogy to how APIs are the building blocks of other products. We have built and are continuing to evolve a framework that makes new consumer experiences possible. Even though I miss designing those consumer experiences, I love seeing what others come up with when using our APIs. During a hackathon we ran at Money 20/20 last October, two high school students (I know!) used our blockchain APIs to build a solution that stores and provides data on blood donations, and they did all that within 24 hours! All the credit to them, but I'm still going to take some pride in the outcome. You get to learn the "How" as much as the "What" While this may not be for every one, I find the deeper technical knowledge I've gained very valuable. As a designer, I would normally be focused on how features are exposed to users. But in a developer platform, there are many cases where we also need to expose what's under the hood. To do so, I'm required to understand the "how" as much as the "what". We recently redesigned our project creation flow. We knew users are confused about what's happening, but didn't know what exactly to expose in the UI. I got a few designers and engineers in a room and we spent a good hour at the whiteboard covering every single step involved in this critical flow. I got what I wanted from that session: understanding the technology behind the flow. But I also came out appreciating all the work that have been done to make it possible for developers to access our APIs in matter of minutes. You're in high demand More and more companies are opening up their services through APIs. In fact, entire businesses have been built around an API-first philosophy. If you know a thing or two about building a developer platform or APIs in general, you are in high demand! I'll end this article with that a link to Mastercard careers.