You MUST Watch THIS If You Want Your Platform Engineering To Succeed

Description

#platformengineering #devops #idp #cloudnative #teamtopology #developerexperience #productmanagers #cloudtherapist In Episode 4 (What Happens When Platform Engineers Become Product Managers?) of the Code To Culture series, we dive into one of the biggest mindset shifts in modern engineering: Platform as a Product. I’m joined by my co-host Cortney (Nirmata), along with two fantastic guests — a Platform Engineering author/practitioner and a CTO who helps enterprises adopt cloud-native, DevOps, Agile, and GenAI practices every day. Together, we explore what really happens when internal platforms stop being “infrastructure projects” and start being products with roadmaps, KPIs, customers, and user experience at the centre. We break down how teams adopt product thinking, how to prioritise features, how to measure success, and how organisations can shift culture to support a product-led approach to Platform Engineering. If your company is building a platform, running DevOps, modernising applications, or trying to improve Developer Experience — this episode will give you frameworks, lessons learned, and practical advice from people who do this at scale. Code To Culture is a deep dive into Platform Engineering, IDP, Team Topologies and integration of cloud infrastructure engineering best practices into DevOps, GitOps and SRE processes, as well as the influence of GenAI. Hello and Welcome to Episode 4 of "Code To Culture - Platform Engineering Unpacked For Enterprises", a 6-part series diving deep into everything Platform Engineering (PE) related. I had the privilege of welcoming two special guests: Mark Peters - Author, DevOps Institute Ambassador, Advisor - Cloud Canaries Mike Mead - Chief Product & Technology Officer - The Scale Factory Our Resident Co-Host on this series is the wonderful Cortney Nickerson (Head of Community At Nirmata for Kyverno Project). If you're looking for Episode 1 in this series, the @CloudTherapist channel is sharing and alternating hosting duties with @cloudnativefm (hosted by my friend, Saim Safdar) - link for Episode 1 is below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgh9G1HqQ9Q Episode 2 can be found on this channel here: https://youtu.be/QxUMGyGsbwY === Episode 4 focuses on PE teams taking over the build of cloud infra systems as products, so effectively becoming Product Managers - God help us!! We look at: * Why choose the same model as building a product? * What does “Platform as a Product” really mean in practice? * Do traditional infrastructure or Classic DevOps teams sometimes struggle to make that mindset shift? * How can organisations successfully introduce product management disciplines? * How do leading organisations make DevEx a core part of their platform strategy? * Platform Product Manager - who usually fills that gap in organisations? * Building internally versus sourcing from vendors or open source projects * Is there enough off-the-shelf PE solutions now? * Looking ahead, how will AI and automation reshape the “Platform as a Product” model? * Are we heading toward self-managing or self-optimising platforms? * One piece of advice from each guest for teams just beginning their Platform as a Product journey 04:08 Guests Intro 06:54 Section 1 – The Mindset Shift 16:10 Section 2 – Building a Product Mentality 26:33 Section 3 – Roadmaps, Governance, and Prioritisation 32:49 Section 4 – Metrics, Adoption, and ROI 40:22 Section 5 - Skills, Roles and Organisation Change 46:30 Section 6 - Buy vs. Build and the Ecosystem View 55:53 Section 7 - Looking Ahead 01:03:35 One piece of advice for teams beginning their Platform Engineering journey 01:05:12 Thank yous, reminders and closing === Mark info: Connect with Mark on LiN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinycyber/ Cloud Canaries: https://cloudcanaries.ai/ Mastering Enterprise Platform Engineering book (NOTE: Amazon UK link): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Enterprise-Platform-Engineering-high-performance/dp/B0F99BZTT5/ref=sr_1_2?crid=5I6XR2QVHITM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vvUOJA5aEJT6_BZdugFvMQ.RdRupgHn8TZ12-nr-_5pD-tTI0KUPZ2locqDWpCElx8&dib_tag=se&keywords=mark+peters+platform+engineering+book&qid=1763910085&sprefix=mark+peters+platform+engineering+book%2Caps%2C89&sr=8-2 === Mike info: Connect with Mike on LiN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-mead/ The Scale Factory: https://scalefactory.com/ === Cortney info: Connect with Cortney on LiN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cortney-nickerson-26836413a/ Nirmata: https://nirmata.com/ Kyverno Open Source Project: https://nirmata.com/kyverno-oss/ === Big Thank You to my special guests Mark Peters and Mike Mead - really appreciate their insights and advice in this episode. Thanks also to our Series Resident Co-host Cortney, for her time and support. All opinions expressed in this video are of the person who expressed them and individual to them. They do not represent any other individual, organisation, employer or entity. === Music: "Audio Pon" - Magik Solo (Pixabay)