On page 9 of the “Cloud for Business” Report, we discuss how going to the cloud is often a key first step for organisations to be able to speedily adapt to the ever-changing landscape and demands of modern business. However, it is after this that many businesses often get stuck. Some get bogged down by the myriad of technical choices available. Others struggle to find suitable operating models that balance the freedom for innovation and experimentation, with the more rigorous demands of security, costs and compliance. Whatever the reasons, many find the promise and agility of the cloud falling short of expectations.

Platform Engineering, a socio-technical discipline, has emerged as a vital ingredient to avoid this outcome. It aims to empower and make life easier for internal development teams to build, deploy and run modern cloud native applications. This is important because when done well, it can result in a significant increase in productivity, which translates into the faster delivery of your technical changes to the market, and in some cases a positive impact on your bottom line too. 

People, Process & Platforms –
A community focused approach

What does it take to build a robust platform for your multiple engineering teams to use, and build it well? One which can accommodate multiple teams, of varying skills, doing similar as well as very different things? This talk will explore these questions, looking at key technical aspects to consider, but just as important, organisational, soft skills and other factors which form part of the platform engineering discipline. Drawing on experience of working across a variety of clients with different setups, we look at what it takes to build a platform which is fit to serve the communities which will ultimately use it.