Our experiences – past and present – shape how we think, work and build. In tech, routines often become ruts. We fall into predictable patterns, following processes that no longer serve us, relying on tools and workflows that were never designed to scale. But just as we must challenge personal assumptions to grow, we also need to challenge how we build and support the teams at the heart of modern software delivery: developers and platform engineers.
In recent years, DevOps emerged as a powerful philosophy, bringing agility and tighter collaboration between development and operations. It revolutionized the speed and quality of software delivery. But despite wide adoption, research repeatedly suggested that organizations were struggling to implement DevOps practices. Why? Persisting issues around fragmented toolchains, siloed teams, shortage of skilled talent, and cultural inertia.
What was needed was not simply a technical transformation but a cultural and operational rethink. And this is where the emerging discipline of platform engineering has stepped in as a game changer. According to Puppet’s most recent 2024 State of DevOps Report, platform engineering has matured significantly, with 43% of organizations reporting that they have been building platform teams for the last 3 years.
The reason is simple: The ability to automate workflows and processes through platform engineering creates standardized processes and improved efficiencies that lead to massively “increased productivity,” “better quality of software,” and “reduced lead time for deployment” for organizations. Critically, it’s able to do this because it’s improving the developer experience (DevX).
Where DevOps once laid the foundation, platform engineering now builds the structure.
View the full article here.
