Platform Engineering 101

📖 Series Overview

Platform engineering has emerged as one of the most important disciplines in modern software development. As organizations scale, the cognitive load on developers becomes a significant bottleneck—teams spend more time wrestling with infrastructure than building features that matter to users.

This series explores how platform engineering addresses these challenges by creating Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) that enable self-service while maintaining security and compliance. Drawing from real-world patterns and open-source tools, we'll cover everything from foundational concepts to practical implementation.

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🎯 What You'll Learn

By completing this series, you'll understand:

• Why platform engineering emerged from DevOps and what problems it solves

• Core principles including golden paths, developer experience, and product mindset

• How to design Internal Developer Platforms that developers actually want to use

• Implementation patterns using tools like Backstage, Crossplane, and Kubernetes

• Governance strategies that balance autonomy with security and compliance

• Metrics and feedback loops for continuous platform improvement

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🗺️ Learning Path

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📚 Articles

Phase 1: Foundation

#	Article	Description
1	Introduction to Platform Engineering	What is platform engineering, evolution from DevOps, cognitive load problem
2	Platform Engineering Principles	Product mindset, developer experience, Team Topologies integration
3	Platform Engineering vs DevOps vs SRE	Comparing disciplines, when each applies, complementary roles

Phase 2: Core Concepts

#	Article	Description
4	Internal Developer Platforms	IDP components, thinnest viable platform, build vs buy decisions
5	Developer Self-Service	Self-service portals, service catalogs, guardrails vs gates
6	Golden Paths and Paved Roads	Designing opinionated workflows, flexibility vs standardization

Phase 3: Implementation

#	Article	Description
7	Platform Capabilities Model	Microsoft's 6 capabilities: investment, adoption, governance, provisioning, interfaces, measurement
8	Developer Portals with Backstage	Spotify Backstage, software catalogs, templates, plugins
9	Platform APIs and Abstractions	API-first design, Kubernetes operators, Crossplane

Phase 4: Operations & Governance

#	Article	Description
10	Security and Compliance	Shift-left security, policy as code, RBAC, supply chain security
11	Platform Observability and Metrics	DORA metrics, developer productivity, feedback loops

Phase 5: Advanced

#	Article	Description
12	Building a Platform Team	Team structure, platform as product, stakeholder management, scaling

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🛠️ Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of DevOps concepts (CI/CD, containers, infrastructure as code)

• Familiarity with Kubernetes fundamentals

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)

• Understanding of microservices architecture

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🔧 Tools Covered

Category	Tools
Developer Portals	Backstage, Port, Cortex
Infrastructure	Kubernetes, Crossplane, Terraform
Policy & Governance	OPA, Kyverno, Falco
Observability	Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry
CI/CD	Argo CD, Flux, GitHub Actions
Templates	Cookiecutter, Backstage Software Templates

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📊 Key Concepts Reference

The Five Pillars of Platform Engineering

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    PLATFORM ENGINEERING                      │
├─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────┤
│   Product   │  Developer  │   Golden    │  Self-      │ Gov │
│   Mindset   │  Experience │   Paths     │  Service    │     │
├─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────┤
│                 Internal Developer Platform                  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│          Infrastructure • Security • Observability          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Team Topologies Integration

Team Type	Role in Platform Engineering
Stream-aligned	Consume platform capabilities, provide feedback
Platform	Build and maintain the IDP
Enabling	Help teams adopt platform effectively
Complicated-subsystem	Deep expertise in specific platform components

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🎯 Target Audience

This series is designed for:

• DevOps Engineers looking to transition into platform engineering

• SREs wanting to reduce toil through better abstractions

• Engineering Managers evaluating platform engineering for their organization

• Software Architects designing developer experience improvements

• Technical Leaders building the business case for platform investment

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📖 References

• Team Topologies - Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais

• Platform Engineering on Microsoft Learn

• platformengineering.org

• CNCF Platforms White Paper

• Backstage.io Documentation

• Humanitec Platform Engineering Resources

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🚀 Getting Started

Begin with Article 1: Introduction to Platform Engineering to understand the fundamentals, then progress through the series sequentially for the best learning experience.

Each article builds on previous concepts while remaining self-contained enough to serve as a reference for specific topics.

Let's build platforms that developers love! 🎉