Platform Engineer
Building the foundation—internal platforms that make developers productive
What Does a Platform Engineer Do?
Platform Engineers build and maintain Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs)—the self-service systems that allow development teams to deploy, run, and operate their applications without needing deep infrastructure expertise.
Think of platform engineering as "DevOps, but as a product." Instead of every team solving the same infrastructure problems, platform teams build reusable solutions. Developers get golden paths—opinionated, well-supported ways to do common tasks.
The goal is to reduce cognitive load on developers while maintaining consistency, security, and reliability across the organization. A good platform feels like magic: developers focus on business logic while the platform handles the rest.
📜 Brief History
2010s: Large tech companies (Google, Netflix, Spotify) built internal platforms to scale. Terms like "paved roads" (Netflix) and "golden paths" emerged. These weren't called "platform engineering" yet.
2017: Evan Bottcher's influential post "What I Talk About When I Talk About Platforms" defined platform thinking. The concept of "platform as a product" crystallized.
2020: Team Topologies (book) popularized the platform team pattern. The COVID-era remote work boom accelerated platform adoption as self-service became crucial.
2022-Present: Gartner predicts 80% of software organizations will have platform teams by 2026. Backstage (Spotify), Crossplane, and other platform tools gain traction. Platform engineering becomes a recognized discipline.
🔄 Platform Engineering vs. DevOps
Platform engineering builds on DevOps principles but takes a different approach:
DevOps
- • Every team manages their own infra
- • "You build it, you run it"
- • Can lead to reinventing wheels
- • Cognitive load on all developers
Platform Engineering
- • Central team builds shared platform
- • "We make it easy to build & run"
- • Standardized, reusable solutions
- • Reduces developer cognitive load
🧰 Platform Capabilities
A mature internal developer platform typically provides:
Application Configuration
Managing configs, feature flags, environment variables
Infrastructure Provisioning
Self-service databases, queues, storage, networking
Build & Deploy
CI/CD pipelines, container builds, deployment automation
Observability
Logging, metrics, tracing, dashboards, alerting
Security & Compliance
Secrets management, policy enforcement, audit logging
Developer Portal
Service catalog, documentation, golden paths
🛠️ Key Skills
Kubernetes
Deep understanding of k8s, operators, service mesh, GitOps
Infrastructure as Code
Terraform, Pulumi, Crossplane for self-service infrastructure
CI/CD Systems
Building and maintaining deployment pipelines at scale
Cloud Architecture
Multi-cloud, hybrid, cost optimization, well-architected frameworks
Developer Experience
API design, documentation, internal tools, golden paths
Programming
Go, Python, or TypeScript for platform tooling
Observability
Building observability into the platform, not just using it
Security
Policy as code, supply chain security, secrets management
📈 Career Path
Software Engineer / DevOps
0-3 yearsBuilding systems, understanding developer needs
Platform Engineer
2-5 yearsBuilding internal platforms, developer tooling
Senior Platform Engineer
5-8 yearsPlatform architecture, cross-team collaboration
Staff Platform Engineer
8-12 yearsOrg-wide platform strategy, technical leadership
Principal / Head of Platform
12+ yearsPlatform vision, developer experience strategy
🔧 Popular Platform Tools
Backstage
Spotify
Developer portal framework with service catalog
Crossplane
CNCF
Control plane for infrastructure provisioning
ArgoCD
CNCF
GitOps continuous delivery for Kubernetes
Port
Commercial
Internal developer portal with self-service actions
Humanitec
Commercial
Platform orchestrator for dynamic environments
Kratix
Syntasso
Framework for building platform-as-a-product
📦 Platform as a Product
Successful platform teams treat their platform like a product:
- User research: Understand developer pain points and needs
- Product roadmap: Prioritize features based on impact
- Developer experience (DX): Make the platform delightful to use
- Documentation: Clear guides, tutorials, and API docs
- Feedback loops: Measure adoption, gather feedback, iterate
- Marketing: Yes, internal marketing—developers need to know what's available!
🚀 Getting Started
- Master Kubernetes: It's the foundation of most modern platforms
- Learn Terraform deeply: Infrastructure as Code is essential
- Build something: Create a mini-platform—even for personal projects
- Study Team Topologies: Understand platform team patterns
- Explore Backstage: Build a developer portal locally
- Think product: Learn product management basics, understand users
- Join the community: Platform Engineering Slack, PlatformCon
📚 Essential Resources
- • "Team Topologies" by Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
- • "Platform Engineering on Kubernetes" by Mauricio Salatino
- • platformengineering.org — Community hub and resources
- • CNCF Platforms Working Group — Emerging standards
- • PlatformCon — Annual virtual conference