Working as a solutions engineer and as a web developer has allowed me to build hands-on experience designing and developing integrations between business systems. Here are just a few examples. I have developed and implemented custom integrations with 3rd party supplies management systems to handle automatic inventory tracking and replenishment as part of a contract with a federal government vendor. I have also developed an integration with the largest retail vehicle sales platform in the U.S. to provide quotes and data for vehicle transportation. Using APIs is far different from building them. I have, for example, archictected RESTful APIs using Flask to allow 3rd parties to interacte with a transportation logistics SaaS.
As my day-to-day job at the time of writing this article requires a majority of my time spent on scoping and designing integrations with customers, I am actively thinking about ways to improve processes with integrations.