Platform Engineering

Until recently, infrastructure was the backbone of organizations operating software they developed in-house. But now that cloud vendors run the computers, companies can finally bring the benefits of agile custom-centricity to their own developers. Adding product management to infrastructure organizations is now all the rage.

But how’s that possible when infrastructure is still the operational layer of the company?

This practical book guides engineers, managers, product managers, and leaders through the shifts that modern platform-led organizations require. You’ll learn what platform engineering is—and isn’t—and what benefits and value it brings to developers and teams. You’ll understand what it means to approach a platform as a product and learn some of the most common technical and managerial barriers to success.

With this book, you’ll:

• Cultivate a platform-as-product, developer-centric mindset
• Learn what platform engineering teams are and are not
• Start the process of adopting platform engineering within your organization
• Discover what it takes to become a product manager for a platform team
• Understand the challenges that emerge when you scale platforms
• Automate processes and self-service infrastructure to speed development and improve developer experience
• Build out, hire, manage, and advocate for a platform team

Table of Contents

Part I. The What and Why of Platform Engineering

Chapter 1. Why Platform Engineering Is Becoming Essential

Chapter 2. The Pillars of Platform Engineering

Part II. Platform Engineering Practices

Chapter 3. How and When to Get Started

Chapter 4. Building Great Platform Teams

Chapter 5. Platform as a Product

Chapter 6. Operating Platforms

Chapter 7. Planning and Delivery

Chapter 8. Rearchitecting Platforms

Chapter 9. Migrations and Sunsetting of Platforms

Chapter 10. Managing Stakeholder Relationships

Part Ill. What Does Success Look Like?

Chapter 11. Your Platforms Are Aligned

Chapter 12. Your Platforms Are Trusted

Chapter 13. Your Platforms Manage Complexity

Chapter 14. Your Platforms Are Loved

About the Authors

Camille Fournier is a technology executive with leadership experience ranging from early stage startups to Fortune 50 corporations. She was a founding member of the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee, and currently serves on the board of the ACM Queue. She has published two other books, The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change, and 97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know.

Ian Nowland has been in the software industry for 25 years, most recently 4 years at Datadog where he was the SVP of Core Engineering. Prior, he was at AWS in their early days of 2008-2016, where he was the lead engineer on the launch of Amazon EMR, and the leader of the first 5 years of the EC2 Nitro project. He is currently a cofounder at a stealth mode startup.