this is a “quick summary” / “hot take” on some interesting ideas around “Platform Engineering” (inspired by a video from Dave Farley). I will be writing more about this topic in the future. In particular explore sound ideas, thinking models and practices to establish platforms that truly support “sustainable fast flow of change” (as opposed to the hype approach that is too much technology-driven and in my opinion rather dangerous and backwards step it taken without proper reasoning and positioning in organizations operating models).

I have just watched a “masterclass” from Dave Farley (in his Continuous Delivery Youtube Channel) on the current overly hyped and poorly positioned takes on “Platform Engineering” (important: as Dave says, Platform Engineering ideas per se are not bad, but there are quite a few “takes” that are not helping achieving the fundamental advantages that properly evolved Platforms can bring into organizations). He brings up a lot of interesting points - that I have also been bringing up in many conversations over the last years. Here are a few highlights that I found very interesting.


Many “modern” takes on platform engineering are “technology-driven” and sell the idea of “creating the ideal platform” that from day one hides all the technical complexity from product teams. This is simply “impossible”: we cannot just create a team that goes and “hides technology” from the teams that need to use it… and furthermore, the platform that teams need must be incrementally built with the very same teams that need it (or even more, as I often say: “Platform should most of the times be started by the product teams”). These “technology-focused and driven platform” will inevitably lead to problems. As Dave says:

“Talking about Platform Teams as the technical teams is the wholly wrong model”.

Alternatively, embrace that “the way to get to great platforms is to evolve them from the demand of stream-aligned teams… not a technology one”.

Embrace that Platforms and Platforms teams should be founded and adopt operating and thinking models that adopt ideas, such as the ones from Team Topologies: reduce cognitive load of product teams; making platforms self-service; and be of optional use. These traits lead to Platforms that are naturally driven by Stream-aligned teams and their needs, as opposed to “technology silos” that hide the wrong complexity and have the wrong abstractions.

I also love and share his take on the weird discussions that are happening around “Platform Engineering” VS {“DevOps” or “Continuous Delivery” or “SRE” or “good-old-engineering-practices”}… that is just wrong and a “commercial stunt” that probably some are using to “milk this hype”! Platform thinking is something complementary and should be leveraged together with many other practices, including the ones stated!

⭐️ His conclusion sums it all up pretty well: “A lot of the current takes on Platform Engineering are “wrong”, and in my opinion, they will lead people to suffer from the same old problems of siloing development and expertize. My advice is to read the Team Topologies book positioning of platform teams, practice continuous delivery and good engineering practices to manage the complexity of your systems and don’t buy the hype that this is some kind of brand new approach to software development”.

I fully agree with these ideas from Dave. I also propose people to look further on this topic. For example, look at the work and thinking of Jabe Bloom on Platforms (also his podcast on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/@Ergonautic). For example, his great work on the “Three Economies” (https://blog.jabebloom.com/2020/03/04/the-three-economies-an-introduction). This brings a level of depth and nuance to this discussion that, to me, is very much needed to make good progress on these discussions!

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