Aaron Hedges, API Product Manager and Web Developer
| (608) 318-3274 | Grand Rapids, MI
SUMMARY
Product manager and web developer with over a decade of experience working with web APIs and improving developer experience. Lately researching and testing AI development tools for problem-solving and rapid prototyping, with hands-on experience building AI-powered tools in side projects to test the boundaries of their capabilities.
SKILLS
Public and internal API strategy
API product lifecycle
Developer experience
REST and GraphQL API design
Fullstack engineering
AI development tools and API integrations
EXPERIENCE
Mux | Product Manager, Platform ExperienceFeb 2025 — Present

Product manager for the Mux dashboard, billing, usage and webhooks, and previously for video products

  • Owned features end to end, from discovery, PRDs and prioritization through go-to-market, including blogs and docs
  • Shaped the roadmap from direct user feedback, competitive research and shifts in company strategy
  • Shipped improvements to adoption and usability, guided by heatmaps, interaction tracking and user feedback
  • Created and ran a quick-wins pipeline: a process for shipping the smaller improvements users most needed, then tracking and evangelizing their success inside the company
  • Product representative on the tiger team for Mux's first product-led growth effort: helped define the target metrics, brainstormed features to move them, and scoped them to ship quickly for immediate impact
  • Dug into deeply technical video features, researching the underlying technology and the competitive landscape to make product calls, then managed their launches
ReadMe | API EngineerOct 2020 — Jan 2025

Engineer with a focus on API and reference documentation

  • Designed core framework functionality and endpoints for new ReadMe API
  • Created service for securely executing arbitrary user-provided JavaScript
  • Applied my OpenAPI specification and JSON Schema experience to a series of React-based user-facing features
USA Today | Senior Product Manager, APIOct 2018 — Oct 2020

Managed the quarterly roadmap and high level processes of the API Services team and most projects that touched the internal GraphQL API

  • Managed two other product managers
  • Planned and executed a year-long, cross-team initiative to migrate from a legacy API to a new API
  • Planned and executed the engineering portion of a year-long migration of assets for hundreds of local markets, supporting the larger merger of Gannett and GateHouse
  • Built and evangelized an improved developer experience for our consumers, including documentation, design guidelines, and more
  • Assisted other product managers in defining and achieving their API requirements
Vimeo | API Product Manager, previously Lead API EngineerSept 2011 — Oct 2018

Owned Vimeo's API and developer portal, as lead engineer and then (from 2015) as product manager

  • Built Vimeo's new REST API as its solo developer, then grew and led the API team
  • Transitioned Vimeo to a distributed, design-first API development process and evangelized API-first development
  • Selected the API team's core KPIs and grew them over time
  • Led the developer portal redesign, from strategy and buy-in through specification, UX and developer feedback testing
  • Lead engineer on a variety of API projects, such as the Node.js and PHP SDKs, Xbox Live authentication and iOS push notifications
  • First point of contact for the API across the company, from product managers who needed API features to business development looking for partner integrations
INTERESTS
Web APIs, Developer experience, Framework design and development, AI's influence on developer experience, Finding new usecases for AI, Tabletop and video games, Movies, Comics