In Greek mythology, Odysseus had to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis — two perils threatening from both sides. Today’s IT leaders face a similar dilemma: technical debt and sprawl on one side; excessive bureaucracy and stifling controls on the other. Enter platform engineering, the emerging discipline that offers a way to steer between these hazards and deliver software faster, safer, and at scale.
From freedom to sprawl to over-control
The story starts with the mainframe era, where infrastructure decisions were simple and everything was standardized. Then came distributed computing, bringing freedom and flexibility but also chaos. Every project team made its own decisions: what database to use; how to handle authentication; where to store logs. The result? A fragmented, unmanageable landscape of bespoke solutions.
Enterprise architecture (EA) teams starting in the 1990s attempted to rein in the chaos by imposing standardization. But their methods — lengthy checklists, rigid approval processes, and the notorious architecture review board — often created more frustration than value. Agile and DevOps teams resisted, viewing these controls as blockers rather than enablers.
The rise of platform engineering
Platform engineering changes the game. Instead of policing developers, it empowers them by providing a productized internal platform that abstracts complexity and enforces best practices without killing agility. Drawing on the famous Netflix metaphor, think of this concept as a paved road versus a gravel path — developers move faster with fewer obstacles, while security and compliance are baked into the system.
A modern platform is a product that supports other products. It standardizes infrastructure, automates security and governance, and reduces the cognitive load on developers. It’s a radical shift from shared services that merely process tickets. Instead, platforms treat internal teams as customers, ensuring ease of use and continuous improvement.
Why platform engineering works
Platform engineering as a discipline works for organizations for several reasons:
- It eliminates reinventing the wheel. Instead of each team solving security, logging, and deployment in their own way, platform engineering provides a curated set of solutions. Developers can focus on building business value rather than undifferentiated heavy lifting.
- It controls technical debt. Left unchecked, too much developer autonomy leads to sprawl and fragmentation. Platform engineering balances freedom with sensible constraints, making technical debt more manageable over time.
- It accelerates delivery. When done right, platforms cut down approval cycles by automating provisioning and integrating governance directly into the development pipeline. Teams get to “yes” faster because sound solution fundamentals and security and compliance are already handled.
- It aligns enterprise architecture with DevOps. Instead of acting as gatekeepers, EA teams become enablers, collaborating with platform teams to embed architectural best practices into the developer experience. Think of it as a “grand compromise” between developers and product teams on one side and infrastructure and architecture on the other.
Platform engineering in action
Leading organizations are adopting platform engineering to modernize their IT ecosystems. A well-designed platform automates DevOps pipelines, embeds security and compliance checks, and offers self-service capabilities that empower developers rather than slow them down. Some best practices for developers to consider when using this approach include:
- Treating the platform as a product. Request-driven infrastructure teams have a reputation for being ticket-driven blockers. To be fair, they are under continuous pressure to support overly diverse infrastructure. Platform teams must engage with internal users, gather feedback, and iterate continuously.
- Automating everything. From security scans to infrastructure provisioning to automated DevOps deployments, reducing manual intervention is key. There’s broad consensus that a “platform,” to be worthy of the name, must automate basic on-demand provisioning. Unresponsive infrastructure slows down digital product value, leading to pressure for “full-stack teams” — which don’t work at scale and, again, tend to promote sprawl.
- Measuring success. Key balanced metrics include developer adoption and cycle time reductions on the one side and reductions in incidents and technical debt on the other — in other words, managing the tension between innovation and control.
The bottom line
Platform engineering isn’t just a buzzword. Rather, it’s a necessary evolution in IT management. Organizations that invest in it will navigate between debt and delay more effectively, delivering value faster and more securely. The era of one-off, hand-built tech stacks is ending. Standardization is back — but this time, it’s designed for speed.
If your organization isn’t thinking about platform engineering yet, it’s time to start. Otherwise, the alternative is a return to the past, where every team struggles with the same problems in isolation. In today’s digital economy, that’s not a risk worth taking.
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