I think the way people think about platform as a concern is starting to solidify a little bit. Companies are moving away from this conception of we have this aspirational model of DevOps. I think what I see in platform engineering is a healthy reembrace of a model in which platform is seen and developer experts generally seen as a first class concern within an enterprise. But rather than being about filing tickets or writing CloudFormation Templates, it's about building a healthy API.
Brian Guthrie, co-founder and CTO at Orgspace and former VP of Engineering at Meetup, has the unique experience of having previously decommissioned his Platform team. In this episode, Brian talks about that story openly, and shares advice for Platform teams to make sure they’re well positioned within their organizations.
Discussion points:
- Brian’s background and story at Meetup - [00:02:20]
- Brian’s perspective on Platform work, generally - [00:06:40]
- The conversation around dissolving the Platform group - [00:12:05]
- Advice for Platform groups positioning their teams - [00:16:55]
- Making sure Platform groups are focused on the right problems [00:21:21]
- How Platform groups can think about communicating with the business [00:23:50]
- Bringing engineering teams into the planning process - [00:25:43]
- Deciding to build vs buy in a down market - [00:28:40]
- How developer happiness is part of positioning platform work [00:32:30]
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