From the Floor: Platform Engineering Insights from QCon & KubeCon

Conferences like QCon and KubeCon are where the platform engineering community shares what it’s building. But what’s said on stage — and what actually works in practice — aren’t always the same thing.

In this session, Daniel Bryant will share a field view of platform engineering based on conversations, talks, and real-world signals from QCon and KubeCon. Rather than a recap, this is a distillation of what actually matters: what’s changing, what’s overhyped, and where teams are still struggling.

The discussion will focus on the gap between theory and practice, the realities of platform adoption inside organisations, and the patterns emerging from teams successfully building and scaling internal developer platforms.

Expect a candid, insight-led session covering where platform engineering is heading — and what teams should do next.

Transcript

1. From the Floor: Platform Engineering Insights from QCon London & KubeCon EU Daniel Bryant Product Marketing Abby Bangser Principal Engineer
2. • AI coding assistant are having real impact • Organisations and platforms have to catch up! • Platforms must support providing of AI capabilities… • …and consumption by AI capabilities • Platform as a Product is (still) a win! tl;dr: Conference buzz
3. Introductions Abby Bangser Principal Engineer @ Syntasso Daniel Bryant, Product Marketing @ Syntasso
4. The events
5. Practitioner-focused conference for tech leaders, architects and senior ICs Multi-track and multi-disciplinary 20+ years old! - Abby & Daniel have both hosted tracks here - Daniel has been a co-chair QCon London
6. Premier (vendor agnostic) cloud native conference in the EU for all practitioners Multi-track with a cloud focus 10 years old - Abby is currently a co-chair! - Daniel was a track host in the first London event KubeCon EU Amsterdam
7. QCon London vibes 💂󰏅
8. AI is a big deal (obvs) …but there was real world case studies from large companies Coding is no longer the bottleneck (and what about PMs and architects?) Platforms need to support the provisioning of AI and the consumption by AI Mentions of digital sovereignty QCon London
9. Recommended talks State of Play: AI Coding Assistants Written summaries: - Morgan Stanley Rethinks Its API Program for the MCP Era - Rewriting All of Spotify's Code Base, All the Time - Your Multi-Cloud Strategy Is a Product Problem — Treat It Like One
10. KubeCon EU vibes 🚴󰐗
11. AI is a big deal (obvs) But so was digital sovereignty And moving from platform tooling to platform capabilities - Day 2 challenges - Guardrail & policy challenges - Platform as a Product (FTW!) KubeCon EU
12. Talk recommendations! The Day 2 Hangover: What To Do After the Platform Party Ends Lightning Talk: Lessons from Putting AI in Front of a Platform: Taming the Non-Deterministic Beast May the Flux Be With You: Tales From the GitOps Trenches at NatWest
13. What does this mean for platform engineers 󰠼󰲪󰠹
14. 1. Produced by API 2. Consumed by API 3. Self-managed Value Stream 4. Reconciled State 5. Implementation Agnostic 6. Fleet-Managed Instances 7. Operational Clarity 8. Continuous Governance Keynote: From Cloud-Native Apps to Cloud-Native Platforms [Community] Platform producer factors 8 Factors Platform Capabilities
15. Wrapping up 🎉
16. • AI coding assistant are having real impact • Organisations and platforms have to catch up! • Platforms must support providing of AI capabilities… • …and consumption by AI capabilities • Treating your Platform as a Product is a win! Conclusion
17. docs.kratix.io/main/quick-start speakerdeck.com/syntasso Thank you!