Platform engineering has emerged as the natural evolution of DevOps. Instead of expecting every team to build their own toolchains, we create internal developer platforms (IDPs).
The Problem with DIY DevOps
When every team builds their own CI/CD pipelines, deployment scripts, and monitoring, you get:
- Inconsistent practices
- Duplicated effort
- Security gaps
- Cognitive overload
Internal Developer Platforms
An IDP provides golden paths—pre-built, supported ways to accomplish common tasks:
apiVersion: platform.company.io/v1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: my-service
spec:
language: node
environment: production
scaling:
min: 2
max: 10
The Platform Team
Platform engineering requires dedicated investment. Treat the platform as a product, with product management, user research, and continuous improvement.