Mike Ward · Product executive · Developer platforms

I turn developer platforms into businesses.

I spent a decade on Square's developer platform — from designing its first public payments APIs to serving as Head of Product, Developers & Partners, leading product across a ~200-person organization. The APIs we built processed $17B+ a year in payment volume, and Block reported that nearly 50% of its mid-market volume (Q3 2022) came from sellers connected to the platform. I still ship working software most days.

Track record

Fourteen years building developer and platform businesses.

$17B+Annual payment volume (GPV) through Square's developer APIs
~50%Of Square's mid-market GPV from sellers connected to the developer platform (Block, SEC-filed, Q3 2022)
$1.8BCoyote Logistics acquisition by UPS — built its product & eng org
6Leaders promoted across levels
2022 – 2025

Square — Head of Product, Developers & Partners

Selected by Square's executive team to lead product for the Developers & Partners business — a ~200-person organization with a distinct P&L, operating in all eight Square countries. The portfolio ran from the public APIs & SDKs, developer docs and funnel, and the App Marketplace to developer monetization, in-person & online payments SDKs, and ML products. 16 direct reports; promoted six leaders across levels.

Keynote speaker at Square Unboxed 2023, Square's developer & partner conference. The era is a memo: Running the platform.

Mike Ward presenting the keynote at Square Unboxed 2023
2019 – 2022

Square — Product Lead, Developer Platform

Designed and shipped Square's modern public payments APIs — Payments (2019), Bank Accounts and Disputes (2020), and Cards among them (the founding memo) — and led Marketplaces, the Stripe competitor we ultimately shut down; I can tell you exactly why. Championed and shipped Square's public GraphQL API (alpha, 2022), and drove the platform's developer-security work: OAuth revocation webhooks and short-lived, limited-scope authorization, both on Square's developer blog.

2016 – 2019

Square — Senior PM, Payments Platform

Founded the Payments Intelligence team, and built the transaction-cost data and custom-pricing capability behind Square's move upmarket. My team's transaction-cost models supported the first change Square ever made to its flagship 2.75% rate, and our ML models predicting per-transaction interchange cost were patented (US10402807). The full story: Knowing the cost of every payment.

2012 – 2016

Coyote Logistics — Business Analyst → Software Development Manager

Hired as a freight broker. Taught myself to code after hours and built a route-optimization program good enough that the CEO moved me into product. Went on to build and lead the 45-person product & engineering team whose web and mobile products supported Coyote — a $2.1B-revenue business — through its $1.8B acquisition by UPS.

How I lead

The people record, and the principles behind it.

The people record

Promoted six leaders across levels, including two people I brought into product from customer support and account management. I ran Square's PM mentorship program, conducted more interviews than anyone in the Developers & Partners org in 2024, and managed 16 direct reports across product and platform operations.

The story I'd tell first: a week before a major launch, a conflict between the docs and engineering teams escalated to me, each side certain the other was the problem. The launch wasn't the problem — the teams had turned tribal — so instead of ruling on the escalation, I coached the two leads and ran a joint offsite. Not a single similar escalation since.

And the record travels: 40+ engineers I helped train now work at Google, Palantir, Amazon, and Bloomberg — that venture is just below.

Operating principles

  • Align on the problem before the solution. Consensus is built person by person, not announced to a room.
  • Clarity is kindness. C-level one-pagers, eng-ready specs, and over-communication beat elegant ambiguity every time.
  • In the absence of a plan, create the plan. Ambiguity is an opportunity, and the customer is the tiebreaker.
  • Launches are a shared party. Credit is a tool for building the next coalition.
  • Range is the job. From demoing launches to Jack Dorsey and presenting public keynotes, to writing quarterly plans, PRDs, and the occasional code review.
Ventures & advisory

Co-founder, advisor, inventor.

2020 – 2021

Eskalate & A2SV

Co-founded Eskalate (2020), the product arm affiliated with A2SV — a Google-backed nonprofit training Africa's top engineers — and served as A2SV's Head of Product, the title A2SV's own 2021 mission film puts on screen. We trained by shipping real products — including TrackSym, a COVID-19 symptom-tracking app built with Ethiopia's Ministry of Health — and the first ~40 engineers we placed landed at Google, Palantir, Amazon, and Bloomberg. What A2SV has since grown into: 1,200+ engineers trained across Africa and 120+ offers at the world's top technology companies.

A2SV — Africa to Silicon Valley mission film
2024 – present

HeritageXplore

Strategic advisor to HeritageXplore, the London platform opening Britain's independently-owned historic houses — founded by Violet Manners, backed by Nick Hanauer and Anya Hindmarch, and covered by Forbes, Tatler, and Town & Country. I advise on zero-to-one product, payments, and engineering.

Ongoing

Advisory

Advisor to founders building early-stage product and payments companies.

Still shipping

I still build. It’s how I stay calibrated.

The cost of turning an idea into working software fell to almost nothing, and strategy and building stopped being separate jobs — so I kept doing both. Each of these is real, shipped software, built solo and end to end with AI-native tools, mostly on nights and weekends. It’s not a hobby; it’s how a product executive stays honest about what building actually costs.

2,546 contributions in the last year

View GitHub →
Contact

Let’s talk.

I’m exploring my next product-leadership role and advise a small number of founders. If you’re building something that needs a platform, get in touch.