You are never too senior to care about the details

As a Director of API at a fintech company, I often hear a common refrain: “At your level, you should focus on strategy and leave the details to others.”, “What got you here isn’t going to take you to the next level.”, “If you are still doing this (e.g. reviewing key API decisions, be involved in bugs and understand their root cause, attending customer escalations), it means you have failed to build a strong team.”. My message to them is — Titles don’t excuse you from understanding the details. If you want the big picture to work, the small details matter too.

While there’s some truth to the fact that senior leaders must shape the vision, drive the roadmap, and manage cross-functional alignment, I’m a firm believer that no one is too senior to care about the details — especially when it comes to APIs and ensuring that the e2e developer experience is spot on. A senior leader in the Integration space who hasn’t experienced integrating with their product first hand should question what value do they add to the table. If your product is a new mobile app refresh wouldn’t you download it and see how it works?

APIs are the backbone of fintech products. They power integrations, enable seamless user experiences, and ensure that our systems are reliable and scalable not to mention a simplified integration can be a key differentiator if. In such a critical space, small details matter. Overlooking them can result in degraded customer experiences, security vulnerabilities, and technical debt that weighs down the company for years. Here’s why I believe that caring about the details is a key part of leadership .

Details Define the User Experience

In the world of fintech, precision is paramount. We’re dealing with money — whether it’s payments, lending, or investing. Any small discrepancy in API functionality can lead to errors that frustrate users or, worse, result in financial losses as an unexpected change can cause a ripple effect.

For example, imagine the e2e payment journey that starts from a buyer typing their card details and checking out and if unhappy ending with a refund or a dispute in payments. Within a company each of this API endpoints could be managed by siloed team but to the end developer putting this flow together all the steps in the journey need to fit perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle.

Take an otherwise relative minor bug that’s caused by a change in Apple’s Safari browser behavior to default to no pop-ups. This although might come across as a bug initially, it has the potential to snowball into a big issue because when engineers built the feature they assumed that browsers would behave in a particular way. (a complete reasonable assumption until it isn’t).

Staying Close to the Tech Prevents Blind Spots

As senior leaders, there’s a temptation to let our technical chops grow stale. Yet, in fintech, technology is moving faster than ever, especially with APIs. Today, we’re integrating AI-driven analytics, blockchain, and real-time payment protocols. Without staying close to the ground-level details, it’s easy to lose touch with what’s realistically possible and how the engineering team is implementing solutions.

I make it a point to regularly review API documentation, check in on key bugs, and discuss specific implementation decisions with my teams. It not only keeps me sharp but helps me spot potential issues that may not be visible from a high-level view. When I show that I’m engaged with the details, it also sends a message to my team that their work matters — down to the smallest parameter in a JSON response.

The Trade-offs Are in the Details

Every technical decision involves trade-offs. When managing APIs at scale, seemingly minor choices around data formats, error handling, or rate limiting can have profound effects on performance, usability, and security.

As a senior member of the team, I’m often in meetings where product managers and engineers weigh these trade-offs. I don’t need to be in every decision-making process, but when something touches core aspects like integration behavior, new endpoint definition, security, scalability, I step in. By diving into the details, I can ensure that our APIs meet both the immediate needs of the business and the long-term vision. This might mean advocating for a more complex solution that takes longer to implement but provides a better developer experience, or pushing for a simpler option that meets 80% of the use cases now but allows for future enhancements.

Trust, But Verify

One of the biggest challenges in leadership is balancing trust and oversight. Of course, you need to empower your teams to own their domains. But that doesn’t mean stepping back entirely. Trust, but verify — especially when your APIs are the connective tissue between your systems and external partners.

I’ve learned that reviewing metrics, keeping an eye on voice of customer/developer, bug reports is crucial to maintaining quality. Whether it’s monitoring the latency of our APIs or tracking how quickly errors are resolved, keeping an eye on these operational details helps me ensure that our APIs meet the high standards expected in fintech.

The Big Picture is Built on Small Details

Ultimately, the vision of any API strategy rests on its execution. A flawless, elegant vision can crumble if the details aren’t properly handled. As a senior leader in my team, my role is to make sure that the big picture aligns with the technical reality, and that reality is made up of countless small decisions.

By staying engaged in the details, I’ve been able to prevent misalignments between strategy and execution. When senior leaders stay curious and care about the specifics, they become better advocates for their teams, more effective decision-makers, and ultimately build products that truly stand out in the market.

Conclusion

You’re never too senior to care about the details. In the world of fintech APIs, where trust, security, and performance are non-negotiable, overlooking the minutiae can have costly consequences. While senior leaders must balance strategic thinking with tactical oversight, those who stay engaged with the details will find themselves better equipped to lead their teams, make smarter decisions, and deliver exceptional products.

It’s in the details that the true value of an API lies, and I encourage of senior leaders to look beyond the powerpoints and go try an endpoint once in a while, I’ll always care about them — irrespective of the seniority within the org.