What is a platform?

Platforms have become an integral part of IT and software development – but how exactly do we define them?
In his talk at the Cloud Native Days Austria, Damjan shares insights from building large-scale systems: from transaction and data platforms to collaborating with more than 400 developers and establishing an SRE team

Transcript

1. Do it RIGHT. What is a platform? 08.10.2025 Damjan Gjurovski
2. Do it RIGHT. What is a platform? 2 A platform engineer, asking themselves the question
3. Do it RIGHT. What is a platform? 3 The first draft of this talk J
4. Do it RIGHT. Hello 4 • Damjan, CTO of Posedio • Interested in Kubernetes, Cloud Native, and Platform Engineering • Will attempt to define a platform
5. Do it RIGHT. Why define a platform? 5 • Started my career as a Software Developer • Worked as a DevOps engineer on one of the largest OLTP systems in AT • Worked as a Platform Engineer on a large Developer Platform • Worked as a Platform Engineer on a Data Platform • Worked on establishing an SRE team
6. Do it RIGHT. Why define a platform? 6 • Started my career as a Software Developer • Worked as a DevOps engineer on one of the largest OLTP systems in AT • Worked as a Platform Engineer on a large Developer Platform • Worked as a Platform Engineer on a Data Platform • Worked on establishing an SRE team
7. Do it RIGHT. Why define a platform? 7 • Still trying to get Developers, Platform Engineers and Managers to agree on a single, useful definition!
8. Do it RIGHT. What is a platform 8 • You won’t know till you’ve built it! • Once you’ve built it, what you have built becomes the platform
9. Do it RIGHT. What is a platform 9 • You won’t know till you’ve built it! • Once you’ve built it, what you have built becomes the platform • A platform is what a platform does! o A platform is defined by its goals
10. Do it RIGHT. More features, less outages 10 • Move fast – increase developer productivity • Don’t fail often – stabilise the system • BUT: Usually, changes cause outages
11. Do it RIGHT. Goal 1: Increase productivity 11 • A platform can only increase productivity for companies of a certain size • Small companies usually suffer a productivity net loss with platforms! • This is because platforms add complexity, and because the math is weird – more on this later Yes and no…
12. Do it RIGHT. Goal 1: Increase productivity 12
13. Do it RIGHT. What can we do about it 13 Kubernetes Operators!
14. Do it RIGHT. Platform of platforms 14
15. Do it RIGHT. Get to break-even quicker 15 Trade-off between DevOps and Platform Engineering
16. Do it RIGHT. Goal 2: Stability 16 • SRE & Kubernetes track their roots to the same company – coincidence? • Platforms offer standardisation: o On a tech stack o On a way of doing things (Golden Path) o On the rules of the game • Understand the software AND the environment in which it runs • Embed SREs into dev teams AND let them build platforms! SRE to the rescue
17. Do it RIGHT. Observability as a feature of the platform 17
18. Do it RIGHT. Goal 3: Compliance 18 • Stop people from doing the wrong thing • Make the wrong thing difficult enough so that at least it doesn’t happen by accident
19. Do it RIGHT. Goal 3: Compliance 19 Data profiling and scanning as a platform service
20. Do it RIGHT. Goal 4: Transparency 20 • For a start-up “chaos” is a feature – experiment, make many small bets and double-down on what works • For an enterprise, life revolves around budget cycles, planning committees and annual roadmaps • You usually ”sell” platforms by specifying what technology you will use • But at best a platform can answer what technology is actually used!
21. Do it RIGHT. Recap 21 Seems like platforms offer standardisation at the cost of flexibility – same as other software!
22. Do it RIGHT. How does the math work out? 22 Less flexibility == less productivity, right?
23. Do it RIGHT. LLN – The law of large numbers (as a metaphor) 23 What makes a developer less productive makes a company more productive
24. Do it RIGHT. So where does the productivity come from 24 • Faster onboarding • Less boilerplate & standard solutions • Pre-approved processes • Lateral movements between projects (due to standardised stack) • Lindy's law – the longer something exists, the longer its remaining life expectancy • Open-source support • In short, the productivity comes from improving or reducing interactions between people, but only works if you have many people working on the system
25. Do it RIGHT. What is a platform 25 • I can only tell you about the doors I have opened • A tool that increases team productivity, standardisation, compliance and stability at the expense of flexibility o A platform lives and dies by the 80/20 rule! The bad news
26. Do it RIGHT. What is a platform 26 • You decide what a platform is! • Prioritise, set a goal for your company • Build a platform J • Measure, ask for feedback from the users • Improve! The good news
27. Do it RIGHT. THANK YOU! CONTACT US: Weyringergasse 1-3/DG 1040 Wien www.posedio.com office@posedio.com 27