Platform Engineering

Foreword
Preface
A Note from Camille
Who This Book Is For
How to Read This Book
O’Reilly Online Learning
How to Contact Us
Acknowledgments
From Camille
From Ian
From Both of Us

I. The What and Why of Platform Engineering
1. Why Platform Engineering Is Becoming Essential
Defining “Platform” and Other Important Terms
The Over-General Swamp
How We Got Stuck in the Over-General Swamp
Change #1: Explosion of Choice
Change #2: Higher Operational Needs
Result: Drowning in the Swamp
How Platform Engineering Clears the Swamp
Limiting Primitives While Minimizing Overhead
Reducing Per-Application Glue
Centralizing the Cost of Migrations
Allowing Application Developers to Operate What They Develop
Empowering Teams to Focus on Building Platforms
Wrapping Up

2. The Pillars of Platform Engineering
Taking a Curated Product Approach
Developing Software-Based Abstractions
The Major Abstractions: Platform Service and Its APIs
Thick Clients
OSS Customizations
Integrating Metadata Registries
Serving a Broad Base of Application Developers
Operating as Foundations
Responsibility for the Full Platform
Supporting the Platform
Operational Discipline
Wrapping Up

II. Platform Engineering Practices
3. How and When to Get Started
Fostering Platform Cooperation at Small Scale
Creating the Platform Teams That Replace Cooperation
Are the Benefits of Centralizing Ownership Worth the Costs?
Realize the Collective Dynamic Is Gone
Focus on Solving Problems, Not New Technology or Architecture
Beware of New Engineers Coming from Much Bigger Companies
Be Slow to Hire Product Managers (and Avoid Project Managers)
Bonus Problems for Integration/Shared Services Platforms
Transforming a Traditional Infrastructure Organization
Your Whole Engineering Culture Has to Change
Identify the Most Promising Areas to Start
Recognize That You Can’t Just Rub Product Managers on It and Call It a Day
Change the Way You Support Your Products
Update Your Interview Process
Update Your Systems of Recognition and Reward
Don’t Have Too Many Project Managers
Accept That Your Team Will Spend More Time Talking to Customers and Less Time Writing Code
Do the Necessary Restructuring
Keep It Fun!
Wrapping Up

4. Building Great Platform Teams
The Risks of Single-Focus Platform Teams
Too Much Systems Focus
Too Much Development Focus
The Different Roles of Platform Engineers
Software Engineers
Systems Engineers
Reliability Engineers
Systems Specialists
Hiring and Recognizing Engineers in All Roles
Allow Role-Specific Titles
Avoid Creating a New Software Engineer Level Matrix
Have, at Most, One Level Matrix for the Systems Roles
If Needed, Create a New Software Engineer Interview Process
Vary the Interview Only Slightly for Systems Roles
Interview for Customer Empathy
What Makes a Great Platform Engineering Manager?
Experience Operating Platforms
Experience on Big, Long-Running Projects
Attention to Detail
Other Roles on a Platform Team
Product Managers
Product Owners
Project Managers/Technical Program Managers
Developer Advocates, Technical Writers, and Support Engineers
Creating a Platform Engineering Team Culture
A Platform Split Between a Development and an SRE Team
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Development Team
Merging the Teams and Adding Product Management
Instilling a Platform Engineering Culture
Wrapping Up

5. Platform as a Product
Product Culture Focuses on the Customer
Characteristics of Internal Customers
Collaborating with Internal Customers
Empathizing with Customers
Escaping the Feature Shop Trap to Serve Customers More Broadly
Product Discovery and Market Analysis
Identifying Potential Platform Products
Evolving Existing Offerings: Smoothing the Edges or Rethinking the Problem
Market Research: Validating New Investments
Product Metrics
Successful Product Execution: Creating a Product Roadmap
Vision: Long Term
Strategy: Middle Term
Goals and Metrics: This Year
Milestones: Quarterly
The Customer-Facing Roadmap
Specification of Features
Practice Makes Perfect
Product Failure Modes
Underestimating the Migration Cost
Overestimating the Change Budget for Users
Overestimating the Value of New Features When Stability Is Poor
Having Too Many Product Managers for the Size of the Engineering Team
Having Product Managers Doing the Work That Engineering Managers Should Be Doing
Wrapping Up

6. Operating Platforms
On-Call Practices
Why 24x7 On-Call Coverage Matters
Why Merged DevOps?
Getting to a Sustainable On-Call Load
Support Practices
Why Platform Engineers Should Do Support Work
Stage 1: Formalize Support Levels
Stage 2: Separate Noncritical Support from On-Call
Stage 3: Hire a Support Specialist
Stage 4: At Scale with an Engineering Support Organization
Operational Feedback Practices
SLOs and SLAs Are Necessary; Error Budgets Are Optional
Change Management
Synthetic Monitoring
Operational Reviews
Wrapping Up

7. Planning and Delivery
Planning Long-Running Projects
Clarifying Goals and Requirements in a Proposal Document
Going from Proposal to Action Plan
Avoiding the Long Slog
Bottom-Up Roadmap Planning
“Keep the Lights On” Work
Mandates
System Improvements
Bringing It All Together
Communicating Status with Biweekly Wins and Challenges
The Basics
Why: What’s the Value?
What: Structuring Wins and Challenges Updates
Don’t Forget the Challenges!
Getting Your Team to Write Wins and Challenges
Wrapping Up

8. Rearchitecting Platforms
Why Rearchitecting Is Preferred to Building a v2
Different Engineering Mindsets
Architectural Needs Drive Mindset Demands
Why It Is Hard to Build v2 Platforms, but Possible to Rearchitect
Addressing Security with Architecture
Guardrails for Rearchitectures
Compatibility
Testing
Lower Environments
Tranches, Slow Rollouts, and Staying a Version Behind
Planning for Rearchitectures
Step 1: Think Big on Final Rearchitecture Goals
Step 2: Factor in Migration Costs
Step 3: Determine Major 12-Month Wins
Step 4: Get Leadership Buy-in, and Be Prepared to Wait
Wrapping Up

9. Migrations and Sunsetting of Platforms
Migration Antipatterns
Engineering Easier Migrations
Use Product Abstractions That Minimize Glue and Limit Variation
Architect for Transparent Migrations
Track Usage Metadata
Develop Automation to Avoid Clipboards
Document On-Ramps and Off-Ramps
Coordinating Smoother Migrations
Scope, Limit, and Prioritize Planned Changes
Communicate Early and Publicly
Push Through the Final 20%
Use Mandates Sparingly
Sunsetting Platforms
Deciding When to Sunset
Coordinating the Sunsetting
Don’t Be Afraid to Sunset When It Makes Sense
Wrapping Up

10. Managing Stakeholder Relationships
Stakeholder Mapping: The Power-Interest Grid
Communicating with the Right Transparency
Beware of Oversharing Detail
Use Regular 1:1s Judiciously
Track Expectations and Commitments
Scale Up with Interlock Meetings and Customer Advisory Boards
Increase Communication During Rough Patches
Finding Acceptable Compromises
Be Clear About the Business Impact
Sometimes Say “Yes, with Compromises”
Saying “No” Without Ruining the Relationship
Compromising on Shadow Platforms
Money Troubles: Cost and Budget Management
Step 1: Figure Out Who Will Benefit Tomorrow
Step 2: Group the Work into Teams (Don’t Go Person-by-Person)
Step 3: Come with Suggestions of What to Cut and Strong Opinions About What to Keep
Wrapping Up

III. What Does Success Look Like?
11. Your Platforms Are Aligned
Alignment to Purpose
Align Teams to Purpose with the Right Mix of People
Align Culture to Purpose with Common Practices
Align Culture to Purpose by Having Teams Collaborate
Alignment of Product Strategy
Foster Cross-Platform Thinking with Independent Product Management
Foster Cross-Platform Architecture with Independent Lead ICs
Seek Feedback from Comments in Platform-wide Customer Surveys
Judiciously Resolve Misalignment with Restructuring
Alignment of Plans
Align Only on Larger Projects, Not on Every Detail
Be Forthright in Confronting Misalignment
Final Alignment Comes from Principled Leadership
Tying It Together: Getting an Organization to Alignment
Wrapping Up

12. Your Platforms Are Trusted
Trust in How You Operate
Accelerate Trust by Empowering Experienced Leaders
Optimize Growth in Trust by Ordering Use Cases
Trust in Your Big Investments
Seek Technical Stakeholder Buy-in for Trust of Rearchitectures
Seek Executive Sponsorship for Trust of New Products
Maintain Old Systems to Retain Trust
Gaining Trust Requires Flexibility on What Is “Right”
Trust to Prioritize Delivery
Create a Culture of Velocity
Prioritize Projects to Free Up Team Capacity
Challenge Assumptions About Product Scope
Tying It Together: The Case of the Overcoupled Platform
Wrapping Up

13. Your Platforms Manage Complexity
Managing the Accidental Complexity of Human Coordination
Managing the Complexity of Shadow Platforms
Managing Complexity by Controlling Growth
Managing Complexity Through Product Discovery
Tying It Together: Balancing Internal and External Complexity
Burning Out on OSS Operations
Trying (and Failing) to Change the Game
Shadow Platforms Force a Reset
Executing on the Reset
Wrapping Up

14. Your Platforms Are Loved
Love Just Works
Love Can Look Like a Hack
Love Can Be Obvious
Tying It Together: Love Makes Your Users Awesome
Wrapping Up: What Is Love? Baby Don’t Hurt Me
Concluding Remarks

Index
About the Authors