API INTEGRATION
Connecting systems that were never designed to talk to each other, built so that when the other side fails, you find out immediately.
BEFORE THE QUOTE
Integration work produces more inaccurate estimates than other development because the difficulty is invisible from the outside. Two integrations that sound identical can differ by weeks.
The review checks whether documentation matches actual behaviour, whether a sandbox exists, how authentication and token expiry work, practical rate limits, webhook coverage, and whether the data model can represent the required sync. It takes a few hours and makes the fixed price more trustworthy.
THE DISCOVERY
The integration is reviewed before it is priced, not discovered halfway through the build.
WHAT I CONNECT
Integration work is built around the records, events, and failure paths that matter to the people using the systems.
Stripe, PayPal, and platform-specific payment systems.
HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Salesforce, Mailchimp, and connected campaign workflows.
Shopify, WooCommerce, inventory, order, and fulfilment systems.
Twilio, SendGrid, Slack, and the events that trigger useful messages.
Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zapier, storage, and operational systems.
Custom integrations with the systems that matter to your business, even when they are not widely known.
RELIABILITY
Every external service will fail eventually. The useful question is whether the system notices and recovers safely.
Transient failures are retried without creating unnecessary pressure on the service.
A retried request cannot accidentally duplicate an order, contact, or record.
Slow third parties do not hang the main application, and non-urgent work is handled safely in the background.
Repeated failures are kept visible and recoverable rather than disappearing silently.
Alerts name the integration and the reason so the right issue can be fixed quickly.
The ownership, mapping, and recovery process remain clear to the team after delivery.
TWO-WAY SYNC
Keeping two systems aligned is harder than moving data one way because both sides can change. The design needs a source of truth for each field, deliberate conflict handling, identity mapping, deletion rules, and a reconciliation process for the drift that will eventually happen.
Sync projects fail when these questions are answered implicitly during development. They are agreed before the build so both systems have a clear role.
“Two systems stay aligned by design, not by hoping the next webhook succeeds.”
COMMON QUESTIONS
The practical questions before two systems start sharing data.
Sometimes, through database access, file exchange, or scheduled imports. Screen scraping is a last resort and its fragility is made clear.
A well-documented API with a sandbox can take a few days. A poorly documented one can take weeks. The pre-quote review makes the difference clear.
Versioned integrations and alerting mean you find out immediately rather than through a customer.
Usually, after a review of the existing implementation and its failure paths.
Yes, with conflict handling designed rather than assumed.
Yes, provided the system exposes an API or a database that can be reached safely.
Tell me what needs to talk to what, and send the API documentation if you have it. The integration is reviewed before it is quoted.