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IMO one of the keys to a platform engineering group's success (alluded to in this post) is having a mindset in which other engineering teams are the customer. O

IMO one of the keys to a platform engineering group's success (alluded to in this post) is having a mindset in which other engineering teams are the customer. Once you flip into this mode it becomes a lot more clear how your platform is really a product, and the platform engineering team fits much more seamlessly into the overall organization.

andendau 6y ago
yes good product management is key even though your customers may not have a choice
- staysaasy 6y ago
  Yup, for sure. Having PMs who understand infrastructure and distributed systems can be a secret weapon for high-scale businesses, especially in enterprise SaaS where competition is more directly head-to-head.
pawsk 6y ago
I think this is a good idea. You should treat the consumers of your services as customers, regardless of whether or not it's an actual end-user.
- staysaasy 6y ago
  Exactly. Once you view other teams as your customers, it helps you focus on things like quality, satisfaction, and adding value in a very clarifying way. And honestly other eng teams kind of are your customers. They may not pay you directly, but they also help to build your product and the company that cuts your (and everyone's) paycheck.
  - pawsk 6y ago
    Regarding treating the other eng. teams as customers, I fully agree. I know it's not something everyone does (Been there, argued that), but when you treat them that way and when you deal with their problems (Service xyz requests are too slow, feature xyz would really solve our problems ...) you will, in the end, help the customers. If my coworkers need my services, then that's because they are developing something that a customer needs. I think of it like a dependency-tree. As long as you trust your company to not have multiple teams develop something that will never see the light of day, or something the user doesn't want or need, then this mindset is absolutely a good one (Sadly been there, done that too).
    - staysaasy 6y ago
      Yup, it isn't perfect but provided that everyone is largely seeking the same goal (company success) it tends to get you to better outcomes. Btw this can be true of other departments as well – for example, SaaS product marketing is often an entity that exists to serve internal "customers." Product management can be envisioned this way as well.
jjtheblunt 6y ago
You just wrote _exactly_ what I and others implored the new VP (for who knows what friends-hiring-friends reason) to make reality in the little company I just escaped. The idea of platform engineering NOT requiring other highly technical experts to stop their productive jobs to track weekly vicissitudes in helm/k8s configurations and blog posts was foreign to them. The company is in a downward spiral, but can't grasp why decimating productivity throughout engineering might be related. cartoons about dumpster fires come to mind (not joking) when I think of engineering there.
- staysaasy 6y ago
  I hear you. Not passing judgment one way or the other as I don't know the details, but it sounds like your former team fell into the trap of allowing engineering teams to kick subpar outputs over the proverbial fence to one another. The way you ultimately solve this is by aligning incentives, eg "platform engineers get fat bonuses/promotions when the products built on top of their platform kick ass."
  - jjtheblunt 6y ago
    well said
k__ 6y ago
Problem is, the other teams can't go somewhere else if the service sucks.
- zaat 6y ago
  Yes they can. There's a name for that: shadow IT. All of a sudden you realize that the annoying engineers have stopped annoying you not because they become better people, but because they got the credit card of some VP and got their own platform on AWS.
  - k__ 6y ago
    This. The things I've seen built with Excel and Access.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Is it really "shadow IT" if they got approval from the VP with credit card attached? Seems like they're officially accredited to do the work.
    - zaat 6y ago
      Sure is, the VP is VP of Marketing and he puts the expenses under media research or something, and they put the whole company CRM data into Mongo or Elastic on AWS with no auth, open to the whole internet to see. And sadly that's more daily news than fiction.
- enzv 6y ago
  That's why the analogy is more akin to a local governmental services.
- staysaasy 6y ago
  100%. This is why it's leadership's job to align incentives such that teams are motivated / rewarded for providing other teams with a high-quality service.
chucky_z 6y ago
I get a bit frustrated by this view solely because internally, folks aren't _just_ your customer. They are your co-workers, and the same thing for them. Their co-workers are providing the platform. The extra bit of empathy makes all the difference, because without fantastic personal communication, 'platform' could be a waste of time for everyone involved.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dd82 6y ago
Good way to put it, but I feel its incomplete without adding >And being able to effectively and quickly incorporate feedback from consuming teams into the product. Without that, you can have a quality platform team pushing out good products, but if it doesn't align with what other teams need or you don't expose good override hooks, then the end effect is the teams will fragment into doing what works best for them.

andendau 6y ago

yes good product management is key even though your customers may not have a choice

staysaasy 6y ago
Yup, for sure. Having PMs who understand infrastructure and distributed systems can be a secret weapon for high-scale businesses, especially in enterprise SaaS where competition is more directly head-to-head.

pawsk 6y ago

I think this is a good idea. You should treat the consumers of your services as customers, regardless of whether or not it's an actual end-user.

staysaasy 6y ago
Exactly. Once you view other teams as your customers, it helps you focus on things like quality, satisfaction, and adding value in a very clarifying way. And honestly other eng teams kind of are your customers. They may not pay you directly, but they also help to build your product and the company that cuts your (and everyone's) paycheck.
- pawsk 6y ago
  Regarding treating the other eng. teams as customers, I fully agree. I know it's not something everyone does (Been there, argued that), but when you treat them that way and when you deal with their problems (Service xyz requests are too slow, feature xyz would really solve our problems ...) you will, in the end, help the customers. If my coworkers need my services, then that's because they are developing something that a customer needs. I think of it like a dependency-tree. As long as you trust your company to not have multiple teams develop something that will never see the light of day, or something the user doesn't want or need, then this mindset is absolutely a good one (Sadly been there, done that too).
  - staysaasy 6y ago
    Yup, it isn't perfect but provided that everyone is largely seeking the same goal (company success) it tends to get you to better outcomes. Btw this can be true of other departments as well – for example, SaaS product marketing is often an entity that exists to serve internal "customers." Product management can be envisioned this way as well.

jjtheblunt 6y ago

You just wrote _exactly_ what I and others implored the new VP (for who knows what friends-hiring-friends reason) to make reality in the little company I just escaped. The idea of platform engineering NOT requiring other highly technical experts to stop their productive jobs to track weekly vicissitudes in helm/k8s configurations and blog posts was foreign to them. The company is in a downward spiral, but can't grasp why decimating productivity throughout engineering might be related. cartoons about dumpster fires come to mind (not joking) when I think of engineering there.

staysaasy 6y ago
I hear you. Not passing judgment one way or the other as I don't know the details, but it sounds like your former team fell into the trap of allowing engineering teams to kick subpar outputs over the proverbial fence to one another. The way you ultimately solve this is by aligning incentives, eg "platform engineers get fat bonuses/promotions when the products built on top of their platform kick ass."
- jjtheblunt 6y ago
  well said

k__ 6y ago

Problem is, the other teams can't go somewhere else if the service sucks.

zaat 6y ago
Yes they can. There's a name for that: shadow IT. All of a sudden you realize that the annoying engineers have stopped annoying you not because they become better people, but because they got the credit card of some VP and got their own platform on AWS.
- k__ 6y ago
  This. The things I've seen built with Excel and Access.
- user5994461 6y ago
  Is it really "shadow IT" if they got approval from the VP with credit card attached? Seems like they're officially accredited to do the work.
  - zaat 6y ago
    Sure is, the VP is VP of Marketing and he puts the expenses under media research or something, and they put the whole company CRM data into Mongo or Elastic on AWS with no auth, open to the whole internet to see. And sadly that's more daily news than fiction.
enzv 6y ago
That's why the analogy is more akin to a local governmental services.
staysaasy 6y ago
100%. This is why it's leadership's job to align incentives such that teams are motivated / rewarded for providing other teams with a high-quality service.

chucky_z 6y ago

I get a bit frustrated by this view solely because internally, folks aren't _just_ your customer. They are your co-workers, and the same thing for them. Their co-workers are providing the platform. The extra bit of empathy makes all the difference, because without fantastic personal communication, 'platform' could be a waste of time for everyone involved.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dd82 6y ago

Good way to put it, but I feel its incomplete without adding >And being able to effectively and quickly incorporate feedback from consuming teams into the product. Without that, you can have a quality platform team pushing out good products, but if it doesn't align with what other teams need or you don't expose good override hooks, then the end effect is the teams will fragment into doing what works best for them.