REST API Versioning Strategy for a 4-Year-Old Public API
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Build a versioning strategy, CI hook, and SDK pipeline for a public API, then earn your verifiable certificate.
The scenario
The SaaS (around 35 percent of revenue from API customers, public-API published changelog) cannot afford another breaking-change incident — Sales now mentions API stability in every renewal conversation.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Design a REST API versioning strategy and deprecation lifecycle that supports two concurrent major versions and prevents another breaking-change incident.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Compare URI vs header-based versioning schemes by integrator impact
- Design a deprecation lifecycle with enforceable timelines
- Use OpenAPI as the single source of truth for SDKs and breaking-change checks
- Coordinate engineering, support, and customer communication around deprecation
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Engineering Software as a Service
Master · Web And Mobile
Strong alignment
This challenge maps to Engineering Software as a Service at the Master level. It sharpens the same practical skills your coursework expects — but in a real industry context with actual constraints and deliverables.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Rest Api Design
Apply rest api design to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Api Versioning
Apply api versioning to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Openapi
Apply openapi to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Sdk Generation
Apply sdk generation to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Deprecation Lifecycle
Apply deprecation lifecycle to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Developer Experience
Apply developer experience to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Product Manager
PMs on developer-platform products who can co-own the deprecation lifecycle are the rare partners engineers actually trust with API roadmap.
This challenge sharpens
- api-versioning
- deprecation-lifecycle
- developer-experience