Platform engineering and internal developer platforms
Platform engineering has emerged as the evolution of DevOps, addressing the challenge of cognitive overload facing developers. According to Gartner, by 2026, 80% of software engineering organizations will establish platform teams. The goal: enable developers to self-serve capabilities without becoming infrastructure experts.
The rise of platform engineering
According to Puppet's State of DevOps, organizations with mature platform engineering practices deploy 30x more frequently with 3x lower change failure rates.
What is an internal developer platform
Self-Service Portal
Single pane of glass for developers to access capabilities
Infrastructure Automation
Provisioning resources without tickets or waiting
Golden Paths
Opinionated, paved roads for common use cases
Service Catalog
Pre-built components and templates
Observability
Built-in monitoring, logging, and alerting
Security
Guardrails and compliance built in
Product Mindset: The best platform teams treat their platform as a product, with developers as customers. They prioritize user research, feedback, and iterative improvement.
Platform vs DevOps
DevOps vs Platform Engineering
| Feature | Traditional DevOps | Platform Engineering |
|---|---|---|
| Self-Service | ✗ | ✓ |
| Golden Paths | ✗ | ✓ |
| Product Mindset | ✗ | ✓ |
| Central Team | ✗ | ✓ |
| Automation Focus | ✓ | ✓ |
| Developer Experience | ✗ | ✓ |
Building blocks of an IDP
Infrastructure
Cloud resources, Kubernetes, networking, storage. Usually via Terraform/Crossplane.
Application Runtime
Container orchestration, serverless, service mesh, ingress.
Developer Services
CI/CD, artifact management, secrets management, feature flags.
Observability
Metrics, logs, traces, alerting, dashboards.
Developer Portal
Service catalog, documentation, self-service UI.
IDP tooling landscape
Developer Portal Tool Adoption (%)
Developer Portal Options
| Feature | Backstage | Port | Humanitec |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service Catalog | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Software Templates | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| TechDocs | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Plugins Ecosystem | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self-Hosted Option | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Managed Service | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
Golden paths design
Common Golden Path Templates
Identify Patterns
Discover common use cases across teams
Define Standard
Create opinionated, best-practice configuration
Build Template
Scaffolding with CI/CD, observability, security
Document Path
Clear guides on when and how to use
Enable Self-Service
One-click provisioning via portal
Iterate
Improve based on feedback and metrics
Measuring platform success
Platform Success Metrics Over Time
Platform team structure
Platform Product Manager
Owns roadmap, gathers requirements, prioritizes based on developer needs.
Platform Engineers
Build and maintain platform capabilities. Mix of infra and software skills.
Developer Advocates
Bridge between platform and product teams. Gather feedback, drive adoption.
SRE/Operations
Ensure platform reliability, on-call for platform issues.
Platform Team Size: Start small—3-5 engineers can build an MVP platform. Scale based on adoption and demand. Too big too early leads to building unused features.
Implementation roadmap
Discovery
Interview teams, identify pain points, document current processes.
MVP Platform
Build core capabilities for highest-pain use cases. Start with one golden path.
Expand and Iterate
Add capabilities based on feedback. More templates, better observability.
Scale Adoption
Migrate teams, training, documentation, evangelism.
Optimize
Cost optimization, advanced self-service, ecosystem integrations.
FAQ
Q: When should we start building a platform? A: When you have 5+ development teams duplicating infrastructure work. Earlier if teams are blocked waiting for infra. The investment starts paying off at 20+ developers.
Q: Should we build or buy our IDP? A: Most organizations combine both. Use open source (Backstage) or SaaS for the portal layer, integrate with existing tools, and build custom automation for unique needs.
Q: How do we get teams to adopt the platform? A: Solve real pain points, make the platform easier than alternatives, involve teams in design, celebrate early adopters, and don't mandate—let quality drive adoption.
Q: What's the relationship with DevOps and SRE? A: Platform engineering evolved from DevOps and complements SRE. Platform teams build the platform; SRE ensures its reliability; DevOps practices guide both.
Sources and further reading
- Gartner: Platform Engineering
- Team Topologies by Skelton & Pais
- Backstage by Spotify
- Platform Engineering on Kubernetes
- Internal Developer Platform
Build Your Internal Platform: Creating an effective internal developer platform requires expertise in infrastructure, developer experience, and organizational change. Our team helps organizations design and build platforms that accelerate delivery. Contact us to discuss your platform engineering strategy.
Ready to build your internal developer platform? Connect with our platform engineers to develop a tailored platform strategy.
