You’ve built a strong DevOps culture, but now things feel messy. As your team grows, tools multiply, and projects that once moved fast now feel slow and fragmented.
Different development teams are stuck managing tools instead of building, while your DevOps team is buried in automating tasks.
Nearly 40% of developers now spend 25% to 50% of their time just managing and connecting tools, more than double the rate from 2021, with 33% saying it takes up even more than half their time. ~ Gitlab Survey
Productivity is dipping because infrastructure maintenance time is competing with development time. That’s the gap platform engineering is built to fill. It brings structure, speed, and clarity without burning out your team.
In this article, we’ll explore how platform engineering helps growing tech teams scale DevOps without the chaos and resolve the tension between platform engineering and DevOps.
Why DevOps Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore
DevOps started in 2007 when Patrick Debois introduced it to close the gap between software development and IT operations. It was built to facilitate shared responsibility, faster delivery, and continuous feedback. For many teams, it replaced the back-and-forth process with a more agile, collaborative way of working.
However, as infrastructure and tooling (especially with AI) evolve, so does complexity. Today, DevOps has turned to a two-in-one role for developers, coding while also managing operational tasks like:
- Configuring and maintaining CI/CD pipelines
- Writing infrastructure-as-code scripts
- Provisioning and securing environments
- Setting up monitoring and logging
- Handling dependency management and compliance checks
This increased work responsibility created other problems, such as,
- Increased cognitive load from juggling both development and operational responsibilities.
- Slower delivery due to constant context switching.
- Burnout risk from too many responsibilities resting on too few people.
- Tool sprawl and inconsistent workflows. As DevOps teams work closely with individual app teams, each team adopts different tools, workflows, and pipelines, leading to a fragmented tech stack.
- Security and governance gaps across the team. Enforcing consistent security and compliance becomes nearly impossible when every team manages its infrastructure, code pipelines, and configurations.
DevOps changed how we deliver software, but at scale, it needs support. That’s where platform engineering comes in.
What Platform Engineering Offers
In simple terms, here’s what platform engineering brings to your team:
- Standardization: Golden paths, reusable templates, pre-approved infrastructure.
- Self-service: Developers don’t wait for ops to deploy/test.
- Observability & governance: Built-in policies, security guardrails.
- Developer experience (DX): Clean onboarding, faster delivery, happier engineers.
Now let’s get to the nitty-gritty.
Platform engineering sits at the intersection of developers’ speed and operational stability. It exists to reduce the cognitive load on developers by creating internal platforms that streamline access to tools, environments, and best practices.
Instead of the development teams managing and building tech stacks for different projects, platform engineers can take up this responsibility. At the same time, developers can focus on writing and shipping code.
Not only does this improve development teams’ productivity, but it also facilitates a unified work process, improving governance. Imagine having five to ten application teams with a DevOps process building individual processes and toolkits. This leads to having different processes and multiple experts needed across each team, which isn’t sustainable.
All these workflows are consolidated with platform engineering, allowing each team to use one governed platform without needing multiple experts to build and code. This is called the Internal Developer Platform (IDP).
IDP is a centralized system that provides reusable templates, automation, and self-service tools for developers. It allows developers to spin up environments, run tests, or deploy code without waiting on a DevOps team.
For example, rather than provisioning an EKS cluster manually in AWS, developers can log into the IDP and get a production-ready cluster in minutes, complete with built-in security, monitoring, and backups.
Platform engineering aims to speed up development teams’ actual work by providing them with all the resources needed without sacrificing control. It standardizes how tools like CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, and monitoring are used across teams, making the developer experience more consistent, scalable, and secure.
Platform Engineering vs DevOps: Complementary, Not Competitive
DevOps introduced a culture of collaboration between developers and operations, built on automation and shared ownership. However, as teams grow and systems become more complex, that culture needs structure to scale. Platform engineering provides that structure.
DevOps = culture + automation + collaboration.
Platform Engineering = builds the tools and systems that scale that culture.
Think of DevOps as chefs preparing the meal, with different chefs using different cooking recipes and kitchen equipment. Platform engineers design the kitchen and are equipped with the right tools, recipe templates, and workflows to help chefs work efficiently.
This doesn’t mean locking teams into rigid tools. If a team prefers CircleCI over the standard pipeline, the platform team works with them to configure it properly and integrate it into the internal platform. Once standardized, it becomes an option other teams can choose from.
So, it’s not about DevOps vs platform engineering, but DevOps and platform engineering.
DevOps and platform engineering create a balance of autonomy and control that helps engineering teams deliver better, faster, and at scale.
Let’s compare how development processes and control have evolved.
| Model | ✅ Pros | ❌ Cons |
| Traditional Dev Team |
|
|
| Autonomous DevOps |
|
|
| Platform Engineering |
|
|
Use Cases of Platform Engineering
Here are some use cases of platform engineering, technical, and non-technical.
Shopify’s BackStage
Backstage is an internal platform specially designed by Spotify for their developers to serve as an internal source ecosystem for development. This platform has supported over two million developers outside the Spotify team for the past five years and is still growing. This is a typical example of an IDP created to serve the core purpose of easing the workflow of technical teams.
GAP Clients
Platform engineering isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. As it eases the workflow of technical teams, it does the same for non-technical teams too. This Clickher mobile app project shows how it can be applied to non-technical teams.
We built a custom CMS that helped distributed editors collaborate, curate, and easily publish content on the same platform.
Because we design custom solutions, meeting the needs of both technical and non-technical teams came naturally. This project results in faster content delivery and over 250,000 app installs driven by consistent editorial excellence.
Mistakes to Avoid When Building a Platform Engineering Culture
There are still many misconceptions about platform engineering. Some view it as a natural evolution of DevOps, while others dismiss it as just a rebrand. But at its core, platform engineering is a cultural shift focused on building reusable, scalable tools that help developers work more efficiently.
Therefore, if you consider platform engineering a necessity to improve your team’s productivity, avoiding these common mistakes will set your team up for long-term success:
1. Not treating the platform as a product
While IDP is a generic term in platform engineering, its application must be specific to your team’s needs. Consider it a customer-facing product that should evolve. This means continuous improvements, feature updates, and lifecycle management based on user feedback and usage data.
To get started, apply these principles as developed by Microsoft:
- Recognize that each customer is important
- Adopt a product mindset
- Empower developers through self-service with guardrails
- Improve discovery, eliminate waste through inventories, and relationship tracking
2. Ignoring developers’ feedback
No product thrives without listening to the end users. Since platform teams are building for developers, leaving them out of the loop leads to low adoption.
Intentionally ask for feedback to understand if the IDP serves the core purpose. Treat feedback like user research, listen early, often, and build accordingly.
3. Building too much, too fast
Trying to launch an all-in-one platform from day one leads to wasted effort. Creating an IDP is a journey, and you need to consider the specific needs of your internal customers, developers, data scientists, etc.
Focus on high-impact tools developers already use. Then apply agile principles and iterate with feedback.
4. Enforcing rigid rules
The goal is guardrails, not gates. For example, if a team prefers CircleCI, help them use it securely and integrate it into the platform. Flexibility builds trust.
5. Failing to measure and improve
Building platforms for developers is not enough. How about the impact? Are developers only using the platform, or has it improved their productivity or helped them deploy faster? Track specific and impactful metrics beyond usage.
If you’re not tracking developer satisfaction, time-to-deploy, or platform usage, you can’t improve. Metrics should guide every iteration of the platform.
Platform Engineering Is the Maturity Layer DevOps Needs
Platform engineering is not a buzzword to replace DevOps or a rebrand, but the next step in its evolution. It fills critical gaps and helps your dev teams work faster, smarter, and with less friction.
If you’re unsure whether your team is ready for this shift, start with an internal review of your current workflows. Microsoft’s Platform Engineering Capability Model is an excellent framework for assessing where you are and what you need.
However, if you need expert support, we’re here to help. Our team listens closely to your developers and engineers to design a platform that fits your unique environment.
Schedule a free consultation to discuss how we can build a tailored solution that empowers your team and scales with your growth.
Extra Resources:
https://learn.gitlab.com/dev-survey-22/2022-devsecops-report
