API & Integrations
API integration developer for REST APIs, webhooks and third-party connections. Payment, CRM, accounting and logistics systems wired together properly.
REST APIs for your own product, and integrations that connect the systems you already pay for. Built so they keep working when the other side changes.
Most integrations are written for the happy path and then quietly fail on a retry, a schema change or a 3am outage. The handling for all three is the part I actually get paid for.
My rate is $14 per hour. Most integrations are a fixed-price build once the endpoints are known. If the third-party documentation is unclear, I scope a short discovery first rather than guessing at a number. Ongoing maintenance, for when an API you depend on changes, runs as an hourly block you can scale.
What I build
REST APIs
Versioned endpoints, token or key authentication, rate limiting, consistent error shapes and documentation your frontend developer can actually work from. Built in Laravel or custom PHP depending on what the project needs.
Third-party integrations
Payment processors, CRMs, accounting systems, logistics and shipping providers, email platforms and ecommerce APIs. I have wired GoHighLevel webhooks into a WordPress lead flow for Showtime Pools.
Webhook handlers
The unglamorous half nobody scopes. Signature verification so you are not accepting forged payloads, idempotency so a retry does not double-charge someone, a queue so a slow downstream call does not time out the sender, and a dead letter path so a failure is recoverable instead of gone.
Data migrations and syncs
Moving records between systems once, or keeping them aligned on a schedule. Field mapping, deduplication and a dry-run mode so you see what would happen before it happens.
What usually goes wrong
The same five failures, on almost every integration I am called in to repair.
If your endpoint accepts any POST, anyone who finds the URL can write to your database.
The sender retries, you process twice, and now there are two orders. Every handler I write is safe to call more than once with the same payload.
API keys belong in environment variables, not in a config file that ends up in git history.
When an integration misbehaves at 3am you need the request and response stored somewhere, or you are debugging blind.
APIs change fields, deprecate versions and go down. Integrations get built assuming none of that happens.
Start to finish
- 01Read the other side firstI work through the third-party documentation and its real responses before quoting. Where the documentation is unclear, that becomes a short discovery rather than a guessed number.
- 02Agree the contractEndpoints, payload shapes, error cases and authentication, written down before any code, so both sides are building to the same thing.
- 03Build the handler properlyThe reliability work happens during the build, not after the first failure in production.
- 04Dry run the dataField mapping and deduplication run in a mode that shows you what would happen before anything is written.
- 05Go live with logging onRequests and responses stored, alerts on failure rates, so the first sign of a problem is not a customer.
- 06Hand over the docsThe written contract, the environment variables, and what to do when the other side changes.
The keys and the code stay yours
Credentials live in your environment, in accounts registered in your name, and the integration code sits in your repository.
If you replace me next year, nothing has to be rebuilt to get me out of it.
Recent work
Before hiring
Can you integrate with a system that has no public API?
Sometimes. Options include a partner API, a data export on a schedule, or a database-level integration if you control both sides. I will tell you honestly if it is not worth doing.
Do you write documentation?
Yes. An undocumented API is a liability the moment someone else has to use it.
Can you fix an integration someone else built?
Yes, and it is a good share of this work. I audit what is there before quoting.
How do you handle authentication?
API keys or tokens with scoped permissions, secrets in environment variables, HTTPS enforced, and rate limiting on public endpoints.
Built with this service
Other ways I can help
I build software, and I measure whether it works.
The same questions I research are the ones I ask on client builds: is it reliable, is it fast, is it easy to use, and is it secure. Those four drove satisfaction in my ICT portal study, and they shape how I scope and test every project.