API Architecture Expert

I am looking for an expert who can hep architect and code an API infrastructure for LawHQ.com. LawHQ is a newer company with around 15 employees (5 developers). As we continue to grow, we continue to add new functions to our code. For example, we have a script to automatically add someone's phone number to the Do Not Call Registry. We have another script to automatically download federal court dockets. We will be adding additional functions such as having our mobile app query and get updates for a user's lawsuits, etc. Currently these functions are used internally, but some of them I would like to potentially make public, and charge for them in the future. What's important is that for now we are decoupling things as much as possible with an architecture that doesn't burden the current development, and also leaves things open in the future (like providing some of the api endpoints for a fee). Our main system is currently run on CakePHP, and hosted on Linode. Our Android and iOS apps are run from Firebase. I want to implement an open source API management solution. There is also this: [login to view URL] but I'm not sure that is the best option for our needs. I expect this would be a long term engagement. As we continue to grow we will likely need to make changes here and there to the API, which I would have you do. However, upfront is where most of the work will be. I hope to hire for this position within the next day or two. To apply, please please take just a few minutes to answer the following questions (I find these questions save a lot of time and allows me to hire a lot faster): 1. How many years of experience do you have architecting APIs? 2. How many years of experience do you have coding API architectures? 3. Do you prefer open open source (Tyk, Kong, etc), paid (e.g. Apigee), or something custom coded, and why? 4. Are you agnostic in terms of the API management solution you use, or is there only one or two solutions you use? 5. What is your hourly rate? 6. How many hours per week can you work right now? 7. When could you get started? 8. Is the fact that our system is in CakePHP and on Linode going to cause any problems? 9. Is there anything else you'd like to share?