Platform engineering has emerged as one of the most important disciplines in modern software organizations. But what exactly is it, and why should you care?
The Problem
As organizations grow, the cognitive load on development teams increases dramatically. Developers are expected to:
- Write application code
- Configure CI/CD pipelines
- Manage infrastructure
- Handle monitoring and alerting
- Deal with security compliance
- Manage database migrations
- And much more...
This is unsustainable. Developers should focus on what they do best: building products.
Enter Platform Engineering
Platform engineering is the discipline of designing and building self-service capabilities for software engineering organizations. The goal is to create an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) that abstracts away infrastructure complexity.
The Golden Path
A "golden path" is an opinionated, supported path that developers can follow to build and ship software. It's not a mandate — it's a recommendation backed by tooling.
# Example: A golden path for deploying a new service
apiVersion: scaffolder.backstage.io/v1beta3
kind: Template
metadata:
name: new-service
title: Create a New Microservice
spec:
steps:
- id: create-repo
name: Create Repository
action: github:repo:create
- id: setup-ci
name: Configure CI/CD
action: ci:pipeline:create
- id: provision-infra
name: Provision Infrastructure
action: terraform:apply
- id: setup-monitoring
name: Configure Monitoring
action: monitoring:setup
Key Components of an IDP
1. Service Catalog
A central registry of all services, their owners, documentation, and health status. Tools like Backstage make this accessible.
2. Self-Service Infrastructure
Developers should be able to provision what they need without filing tickets. Terraform modules, Crossplane compositions, or custom controllers can power this.
3. CI/CD Templates
Pre-built pipeline templates that handle building, testing, security scanning, and deploying — following organizational best practices.
4. Observability Stack
A unified observability platform with Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, and Tempo that gives developers insight into their services.
5. Documentation
Comprehensive, auto-generated documentation that lives alongside the code.
Getting Started
- Interview your developers — Understand their pain points
- Start small — Pick one workflow to improve
- Measure — Track developer productivity metrics (DORA)
- Iterate — Platform engineering is a product discipline
- Build community — Your platform needs internal champions
How We Can Help
At Kicked, we help engineering teams design and implement Internal Developer Platforms. Whether you're starting from scratch or evolving an existing platform, we bring experience from dozens of implementations.
Get in touch to discuss your platform engineering needs.
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