Paving Safer Roads

In this presentation, I dive into a 90-day plan for embracing platform engineering paradigms.

This version of the talk was given at Cloud Crafters .5 in November 2025.

Transcript

1. Paving Safer Roads Towards Platform Engineering Cloud Crafters .5 November 2025
2. Kerim Satirli Sr. Developer Advocate at IBM and Author of O'Reilly's Terraform Cookbook @ksatirli
3. How do we turn the paved road into the fastest and safest road?
4. Developers Security Observability Resources Integration and Delivery Compute Monitoring and Logging Observability FinOps Incident Management IDEs Agents and LLMs Internal Developer Portals Version Control CI Continuous Delivery Infra Control Planes Cluster Management Data Networking Services Messaging Code Analysis Secrets Management Identity Management Policy Controls Security Suites Network Security Orchestration
5. Reality 83% have platform eng teams
6. Reality Check 83% have platform eng teams 73% work in a disconnected way
7. Development Production
8. We built the team but forgot the product-market fit.
9. Platform ≠ Product
10. Platform work is foundational.
11. Developers Security Observability Resources Integration and Delivery Compute Monitoring and Logging Observability FinOps Incident Management IDEs Agents and LLMs Internal Developer Portals Version Control CI Continuous Delivery Infra Control Planes Cluster Management Data Networking Services Messaging Code Analysis Secrets Management Identity Management Policy Controls Security Suites Network Security Orchestration
12. Developer Experience • codify org settings and permissions • unify developer experience across org • manage basic repository files Weeks 1  3 • codify repo settings and permissions • unify and manage pipeline definitions • manage consistent agent instructions
13. Developers Security Observability Resources Integration and Delivery Compute Monitoring and Logging Observability FinOps Incident Management IDEs Agents and LLMs Internal Developer Portals Version Control CI Continuous Delivery Infra Control Planes Cluster Management Data Networking Services Messaging Code Analysis Secrets Management Identity Management Policy Controls Security Suites Network Security Orchestration
14. Security Enhancements Weeks 4  5 • codify and centrally manage IAM • enhanced logging for forensics • IAM discovery and mapping • "common failures" mapping
15. Developers Security Observability Resources Integration and Delivery Compute Monitoring and Logging Observability FinOps Incident Management Internal Developer Portals Version Control CI Continuous Delivery Infra Control Planes Cluster Management Data Networking Services Messaging Code Analysis Secrets Management Identity Management Policy Controls Security Suites Network Security Orchestration IDEs Agents and LLMs
16. Secrets Management Weeks 6  9 • secrets discovery and mapping • migrate static secrets into manager
17. People Ops Weeks 10  11 • find executive sponsors
18. Platform Engineering Weeks 12 • pave roads worth traveling on
19. Takeways • one size won't fit all, build escape hatches • standardization means loss of control • small steps lead to bigger outcomes • security isn't slow, it is important • no one likes change (or extra work) • don't do this alone
20. People Identity and Security Observability and Monitoring Compute Storage Networking Integration and Delivery
21. engineering is a team sport ♥
22. ©2025 HASHICORP Thank you speakerdeck.com/ksatirli