Design backend APIs for changing team membership and roles inside a SaaS account.

Design team membership and role changes

Designs membership, role changes, removal, ownership transfer, and permission updates without weakening tenant boundaries.

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TL;DR

I would model users separately from memberships. A membership belongs to an account or tenant and contains role, status, timestamps, and who created or changed it. APIs for add, remove, activate, deactivate, and change role would check the actor's capabilities inside the same tenant. Removing a member disables future access to tenant resources while preserving historical ownership and audit records.

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Membership modeling, capability checks, ownership transfer, role updates, removal behavior, audit logging, and consistency.

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Why this question matters
Membership APIs look like ordinary CRUD, but they control who can access customer data. The design needs a clear permission boundary and safe handling for the last owner, removed users, and role changes.
I would model users separately from memberships. A membership belongs to an account or tenant and contains role, status, timestamps, and who created or changed it. APIs for add, remove, activate, deactivate, and change role would check the actor's capabilities inside the same tenant. Removing a member disables future access to tenant resources while preserving historical ownership and audit records.
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I would define business invariants explicitly. A tenant might require at least one owner, block users from removing themselves as the last admin, and prevent assigning roles above the actor's authority. Role changes need audit records and may require invalidating cached permissions or active sessions. The API response can include the effective capabilities so the UI and backend agree on what changed.

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Details

Treating global user role as the same thing as tenant membership.
Allowing removal of the last owner without a recovery path.
Forgetting to invalidate permission caches or active sessions.
No audit event for privileged role changes.

Design backend APIs for changing team membership and roles inside a SaaS account.

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