API Governance Manager

Join the UAE’s largest bank and one of the world’s largest and safest financial institutions. Our focus is to create value for our employees, customers, and shareholders, helping us grow through differentiation, agility, and innovation.

Overall objectives

• Define and implement a comprehensive API governance framework that ensures consistency, security, and scalability across all value streams.
• Drive the API Technical product strategy to support digital transformation, platform enablement, and ecosystem integration.
• Foster an API-first mindset across the streams, promoting modularity, reusability, and agility.
• Ensure APIs are designed and managed as strategic digital assets that deliver measurable business value.
• Align API initiatives with enterprise architecture, data strategy, and reusable adoption goals.
• Establish metrics and KPIs to measure API performance, adoption, and business impact.

Role specific responsibilities

• Lead the API onboarding process through technical product owners for internal and external consumers, ensuring ease of access and compliance.
• Develop and maintain API governance policies, including naming conventions, documentation standards, and security protocols.
• Own the API product lifecycle, from ideation and design to retirement and replacement.
• Manage the API catalog and developer portal, ensuring discoverability and usability.
• Monitor and report on API performance, adoption, and ROI to leadership.
• Facilitate API design reviews, ensuring adherence to governance and architectural standards.
• Drive API innovation, including experimentation with emerging technologies like AI-powered APIs and event-driven architectures.

Core competencies required (Exp Overall : 15+ Years, Banking 10+ Years)

• Ability to translate business needs into API capabilities.
• Expertise in API protocols (REST, GraphQL, gRPC), API gateways, and service mesh.
• Strong grasp of API lifecycle governance, versioning, and deprecation policies.
• Familiarity with regulatory frameworks (e.g., Open Banking, GDPR, PSD2, HIPAA) and their impact on APIs.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence without authority.
• Strong communication and evangelism skills to promote API adoption and literacy.
• Proficiency in API analytics, usage tracking, and performance optimization.
• Experience with tools like API Management, Kong, Cloud Native Services, Kubernetes.