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paw cloud case study

Building a Specialized API Development Team: The Paw Story

Growing a Technical Product Team for API Development Tools

Paw, founded in 2014 by Micha Mizaheri, built a full-featured API design and collaboration tool that became the number one choice among Mac developers for API testing and development. With notable clients including Google, Slack, Netflix, Airbnb, and Mailchimp, Paw developed a native macOS application that enabled developers to create requests, inspect server responses, generate client code, and export API definitions.

What makes this particularly compelling is how developers were building tools they would use themselves daily. As Paw’s platform became widely recognized for its time-saving UX, extensibility, and performance, it created the unique dynamic of API tool creators serving the same technical community they belonged to.

The Collaboration: Strategic Technical Hiring During Growth Phase

Omnes Group began collaborating with Paw during Q2 2020, when the company had a core team of 2 Senior Engineers and a UI/UX Designer. At this critical growth stage, founder Micha Mizaheri emphasized a talent-first approach that would become central to their expansion strategy.

“As a technical founder, my goal is to bring the most talented developers to the team to set the right culture from the start.” – Micha Mizaheri, Founder

The remote-first development environment presented both opportunities and challenges. Given the current market shift toward remote work, evaluating collaboration skills alongside technical expertise became crucial for building distributed teams that could maintain the product’s reputation for superior developer experience.

Technical Roles and Market Context

Our recruitment focus centered on two specialized JavaScript positions that required deep understanding of API development workflows:

Senior Frontend Software Engineer (React)

  • Responsible for frontend application architecture and component design
  • Required expertise in React patterns and UI integration
  • Collaborated closely with Lead Designer on user experience optimization
  • Needed to understand the specific needs of API developers using Mac-native applications

Senior JavaScript Software Engineer

  • Built the core business logic for API testing and design workflows
  • Ensured rock-solid, thoroughly tested code architecture
  • Focused on integration capabilities across different API types and protocols
  • Required understanding of API development lifecycle and testing methodologies

Market Evolution and Strategic Outcome

The API development landscape experienced significant acceleration during 2020-2021, driven by digital transformation efforts and the increased demand for API tooling that developers required to build digital services and business models. This market shift positioned Paw strategically for the next phase of growth.

In February 2021, RapidAPI acquired Paw as part of their strategy to extend their platform across the entire API development lifecycle, creating a connected experience for developers from API development to consumption across multiple clouds and gateways.

The acquisition enabled several key developments:

  • Expansion beyond Mac-only to include Windows, Linux, and web versions
  • Integration with RapidAPI’s broader platform ecosystem, now called RapidAPI Design by Paw
  • Formal rebranding to RapidAPI for Mac in November 2022

The Hiring Impact: Building for Scale and Acquisition

The strategic hiring of specialized JavaScript engineers during our collaboration proved crucial as Paw navigated this growth trajectory. The team we helped build became integral to:

  • Maintaining the product’s renowned developer experience during platform expansion
  • Supporting the technical integration with RapidAPI’s ecosystem
  • Enabling cross-platform development that brought Paw’s intuitive UI and superior performance to Windows and Linux users

What This Reveals About Technical Hiring in Growth-Stage API Companies

The current API economy continues expanding rapidly, with companies like RapidAPI reaching unicorn status and growing developer communities to 4 million users. For hiring managers building API development tools, several patterns emerge:

Technical Depth Requirements Have Evolved The shift toward comprehensive API development platforms means frontend engineers need understanding of API workflows, not just general React skills. Backend engineers must grasp the entire API development lifecycle, from design through testing and monitoring.

Remote Collaboration Skills Are Non-Negotiable With distributed teams becoming standard in API development, the ability to work asynchronously and document technical decisions clearly has become as critical as coding ability.

Platform Integration Expertise Matters As acquisitions reshape the API tooling landscape, engineers who understand how to build for integration and extensibility provide significant strategic value.

Let’s discuss how these market shifts impact the specialized engineering roles you’re looking to fill. The API development space continues evolving rapidly, because understanding these technical requirements early can make the difference between building a team that scales and one that struggles with market demands.

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We really liked the quality of the leads that Omnes sent our way. All were very high profile candidates. We didn’t have the time and resources internally to source the candidates, and Omnes did a much better job that we were doing internally.
Micha Mazaheri, paw.cloud

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