Overview
A well-designed API is a product in itself — one that other systems, teams, and developers depend on. Elytic Labs designs and builds backend systems and APIs that are fast, predictable, and built with the consumers in mind, whether that's a frontend team, third-party integrators, or internal microservices.
Evan Watson has designed and shipped production APIs across fintech, healthtech, and SaaS platforms — from simple REST endpoints to complex GraphQL schemas and real-time event-driven systems. The focus is always the same: clean contracts, solid authentication, meaningful error handling, and performance that holds up under real load.
What's included
- API design & contract definition — RESTful resource modeling, GraphQL schema design, OpenAPI/Swagger specification, and versioning strategy before a line of code is written
- Backend service development — production-grade services built in Python (FastAPI) or Node.js (TypeScript), with clean architecture, dependency injection, and full test coverage
- Authentication & authorization — OAuth2, JWT, API key management, role-based access control (RBAC), and third-party identity provider integration (Auth0, Cognito, Firebase Auth)
- Database design & query optimization — schema design, indexing strategy, query profiling, and ORM configuration for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MongoDB
- Third-party integrations — payment processors (Stripe), communication platforms (Twilio, SendGrid), cloud storage, and external API orchestration
- API gateway & rate limiting — AWS API Gateway, Kong, or custom middleware for throttling, caching, logging, and traffic management
- Testing & documentation — unit, integration, and load testing suites; auto-generated and hand-curated API documentation delivered as part of every engagement
Technologies & tools
Python · FastAPI · Node.js · TypeScript · GraphQL · REST · PostgreSQL · MySQL · MongoDB · Redis · Docker · Kubernetes · OAuth2 · JWT · Auth0 · AWS API Gateway · Kong · Stripe · OpenAPI / Swagger · pytest · Jest
Ideal for
- Startups building their first backend who want to avoid the architectural mistakes that create rewrites six months later
- Frontend teams blocked by an unreliable or undocumented API they didn't build
- Product companies opening their platform to third-party developers and needing a public API that's production-ready
- Engineering teams whose existing API has become a performance bottleneck or security liability
- Organizations needing a backend specialist to augment their team for a specific build or sprint
On API-first development
Elytic Labs follows an API-first approach — the contract is designed, reviewed, and agreed upon before implementation begins. This means frontend teams can work in parallel using mocks, scope is locked early, and the delivered API matches what was promised. It also means changes mid-engagement are handled transparently as scope adjustments rather than absorbed silently into a ballooning timeline.