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> Let’s get rid of devops and hire platform engineers. The problem is it’s a really weird and rare combination of skillsets, in a field no one really wants to d

> Let’s get rid of devops and hire platform engineers. The problem is it’s a really weird and rare combination of skillsets, in a field no one really wants to do except complete weirdos (I am one) TIL about platform engineers. But I'm still unsure what kind of things they produce. I know that they basically create a self-service organisation-specific infrastructure that can be used by developers inside an organisation to deploy software. But how does this self-service look like? Do developers fill in a web form to automatically get a server with the right firewall rules?

nunez 3y ago
Explaining what platform engineers do requires explaining why platform engineering exists. The whole idea behind platform engineering is the mindset that the "platform", i.e. the stuff that runs the things that business cares about, is a product. Reframing the platform as a product instead of "IT" or "the place where apps go" introduces three concepts that were previously foreign to operations: 1. The platform has customers instead of consumers, and getting/acting upon their feedback is important, 2. The platform has some semblance of reliability guarantees, and copious observability is needed to uphold them, and 3. Like other products, the platform needs a dedicated, cross-functional team to maintain and improve on it. So basically platform engineers are engineers that focus on either the "developer experience" part of the platform (i.e. the platform's frontend) or the platforms back-end (servers, persistence, networking, etc.). > But how does this self-service look like? Do developers fill in a web form to automatically get a server with the right firewall rules? Kind-of. In an ideal platform, developers wouldn't even know or care that their stuff is on a server. It could be in a toaster, for all they care. So it's kind of just there. They write and maintain code locally, and their build and release pipelines stores and deploys into it.
klooney 3y ago
Yes. Honestly it generally looks like low quality wrappers around AWS that don't save anyone any time.
- aprdm 3y ago
  You probably never worked on a complex system to think that
- vaylian 3y ago
  I've read a lot about golden paths. And therefore I guess: The UI of the internal platform might not look as polished as AWS, but maybe it is much more focused on the features that the developers in the organization actually need?

nunez 3y ago

Explaining what platform engineers do requires explaining why platform engineering exists. The whole idea behind platform engineering is the mindset that the "platform", i.e. the stuff that runs the things that business cares about, is a product. Reframing the platform as a product instead of "IT" or "the place where apps go" introduces three concepts that were previously foreign to operations: 1. The platform has customers instead of consumers, and getting/acting upon their feedback is important, 2. The platform has some semblance of reliability guarantees, and copious observability is needed to uphold them, and 3. Like other products, the platform needs a dedicated, cross-functional team to maintain and improve on it. So basically platform engineers are engineers that focus on either the "developer experience" part of the platform (i.e. the platform's frontend) or the platforms back-end (servers, persistence, networking, etc.). > But how does this self-service look like? Do developers fill in a web form to automatically get a server with the right firewall rules? Kind-of. In an ideal platform, developers wouldn't even know or care that their stuff is on a server. It could be in a toaster, for all they care. So it's kind of just there. They write and maintain code locally, and their build and release pipelines stores and deploys into it.

klooney 3y ago

Yes. Honestly it generally looks like low quality wrappers around AWS that don't save anyone any time.

aprdm 3y ago
You probably never worked on a complex system to think that
vaylian 3y ago
I've read a lot about golden paths. And therefore I guess: The UI of the internal platform might not look as polished as AWS, but maybe it is much more focused on the features that the developers in the organization actually need?