How platform engineering improves the developer experience—and leads to better software, faster.
Discover how platform engineering helps engineers and developers self-serve and innovate while improving security.
Software developers have seen many changes over the past decade. With the embrace of cloud and automated CI/CD pipelines, DevSecOps has radically changed how we develop, deploy, and support software. In recent years, a new concept called the developer platform has taken hold, and it promises to improve the developer experience—setting the stage for the accelerated delivery of great software.
The developer platform is a unified, self-service environment that provides developers with the tools, processes, and infrastructure they need to develop, deploy, and manage applications efficiently and securely.
Think of it like a highway system. Just as our highway system provides the infrastructure for vehicles to travel smoothly and efficiently from one place to another, platform engineering creates the underlying infrastructure that allows software applications to run smoothly and efficiently. A well-designed highway system also optimizes the travel experience for drivers. In the same way, a well-engineered platform enhances the developer experience, making it easier for them to build, deploy, and manage applications.
Unlocking innovation and empowering engineers
Platform engineering offers development teams a new way to add value to the mission.
Platform engineering creates and supports a set of golden pathways that developers can use in a self-service manner. This isn’t about stifling innovation and restricting what developers can do, but rather making it easy to do the things they do most often and do them the right way, putting guardrails in place to keep the golden path secure. The CI/CD pipeline itself is a part of the platform engineering tech stack, along with a front-end “portal” that is called an Internal Developer Portal (IDP).
The objectives of developer platforms and platform engineering include:
- Consolidating and standardizing multiple disparate developer processes.
- Streamlining and automating development workflows.
- Enhancing developer productivity.
- Improving visibility and collaboration between development and operations teams.
- Ensuring security and compliance.
- Optimizing resource utilization.
By empowering your engineers with the tools they need to succeed, you’ll free more of their time and energy to focus on delivering value. Combining smaller disparate CI/CD pipelines into a larger developer platform provides consistency in security and compliance practices. Scanning for vulnerabilities both in code and in outside artifacts like modules and containers is important in today’s world, and it’s much easier to implement and measure with a unified platform than with multiple disparate systems.
How to get started with platform engineering
Here are five steps you should take today to explore and adopt platform engineering practices in your organization:
1) Talk to your developers and determine what’s slowing them down. The goal of platform engineering is to make developers’ lives better, faster, and easier. By focusing on your users and getting a clear picture of their challenges, you’ll be in a strong position to introduce effective solutions and earn buy-in from your developers and platform users.
2) Document CI/CD practices and tools across development teams. Through surveys, exploratory meetings, CI/CD pipeline reviews, and architecture review meetings, assemble a list of all tools in use by all development teams. The goal of platform engineering is to consolidate and standardize tooling to free up cycles typically spent on managing infrastructure. Instead of reinventing the wheel, it’s better to start from where you are today.
3) Standardize CI/CD practices and tools across teams where possible, while still allowing for autonomy and self-service. Start small and grow. What are the common denominators between teams? What are the biggest problems that need solving? Which teams have already solved similar problems? By focusing on standardization, you’ll uncover efficiencies and optimize your efforts.
4) Implement self-service where possible, using the standardized CI/CD practices and tools decided above. Again, start small and grow, racking up small wins along the way to prove the value to stakeholders. Where are developers wasting the most time? What role can generative AI play in helping streamline development and operations? (Ed. See how we’re helping CDC use GenAI to accelerate development.) By introducing self-service, you’ll gain important insights from users that can inform your decisions as you scale.
5) Evaluate open-source tools like Atlantis, ArgoCD, Backstage, and Crossplane to determine if they would add value to your development CI/CD processes. Note, many platform engineering projects start at this step, but until you’ve done your homework above, you’re not ready to evaluate new platform engineering tools.
Platform engineering offers development teams a new way to add value to the mission. By breaking down silos and empowering self-service, you can set the stage for innovation and accelerated delivery—making your developers happier as they design and build impactful software.
