Isn't it great to see the tireless work of dedicated colleagues being rewarded with international fame?
Especially when that fame elevates them above some of the biggest and richest companies in the world.
Every year since 2018, the Developer Portal Awards have recognized excellence in the tech industry, highlighting developer portals that balance technical documentation with business needs and user experience.
This year, our Documentation hub won Best Developer Portal for Data Products. So let's introduce the people behind the hub. UP42's docs team is a trifecta of talent:
-
Daria Lutchenko, the Developer Experience & Documentation Lead
-
Saad Rayees, the Technical Documentation Engineer
-
Ciarán Ainsworth, the Web Developer
Their job is to fully document our Earth observation platform: all it contains and all of its potential.
But Earth observation imagery is no simple beast. We've got 50+ collections in all different types: multispectral, hyperspectral, SAR, elevation, and more. Those come from satellites, drones, and airplanes. And on top of those, we have some nifty processing algorithms. But enough with the lists, you can see the whole range in the Documentation hub if you want all the details.
The point is, all of that needs to be explained. It needs to be explained in a way that's accessible to our users, who come in all different kinds. We have developers and data scientists who need to build complex workflows. We have business users who just want to use the console within their browser. And we have everyone in between.
Why did UP42 win?
The category that we won, Best Developer Portal For Data Products, was a brand new one in 2025. As per the Developer Portal Awards' website:
"This new category... shines a spotlight on the distinct documentation requirements of data products delivered via APIs---particularly in contrast to operational APIs or microservices. The focus here is on data content, structure, provenance, and interpretability. While operational API documentation explains how to call a function, data product documentation must additionally enable clients to understand, trust, and effectively use the data itself. For API data products, users require a hybrid of technical API documentation and classic data dictionary or metadata documentation."
The jury also lays out the reasons why UP42 won in this category:
-
The Documentation hub tackled a challenging and complicated data set, and set a high standard for compliance and transparency.
-
The Documentation hub excels at treating geospatial offerings as data products, with clear provenance for provider and processing levels, strong interpretability, and a practical, centralized catalog. Every exposed API comes with its End User License Agreement presented.
-
Its overall data governance and transparency approach directly addressed the jury's highest concern, which was trust. To quote: "The UP42 Documentation hub has proven itself as the clear benchmark for responsible and accountable data product management."
You can read the jury's full rationale here. For the list of nominees and more information about the Developer Portal Awards, take a look at their site. They also have a newsletter in case you'd like to keep up with them in 2026.
