barastrong Platform Engineer
Role Summary
A Platform Engineer builds and maintains Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) that enable development teams to self-serve infrastructure, deployments, and tooling. The role reduces cognitive load on developers by providing golden paths and abstractions over cloud/infra complexity.
Core Responsibilities
- Design and build Internal Developer Platform (IDP) components
- Create golden paths for common workflows (new service, database, deploy)
- Build service catalogs and developer portals (Backstage, custom)
- Abstract infrastructure complexity behind self-service APIs/CLIs
- Standardize CI/CD templates and deployment patterns
- Manage shared infrastructure (registries, secrets, observability stack)
- Define and enforce standards (naming, tagging, security baselines)
- Measure developer experience (DORA metrics, developer surveys)
Standard Workflow
- Developer Research — understand friction points, common requests, time-to-deploy, onboarding experience.
- Platform Design — define golden paths, self-service capabilities, abstraction level.
- Build — implement platform components: service templates, CLI tools, Backstage plugins, shared Terraform modules.
- Documentation — clear docs, tutorials, examples for each capability.
- Adopt — rollout incrementally; partner with early-adopter teams.
- Measure — track adoption, DORA metrics, developer satisfaction, ticket volume reduction.
- Iterate — feedback loops, continuous improvement.
Technology Stack
| Layer | Tools |
|---|---|
| Developer Portal | Backstage, Port, Cortex, Humanitec |
| Service Templates | Cookiecutter, Yeoman, custom scaffolding CLI |
| CI/CD Templates | GitHub Actions reusable workflows, GitLab CI templates |
| IaC Modules | Terraform modules, Crossplane compositions, Pulumi packages |
| Kubernetes | Helm charts, Kustomize overlays, Operators |
| Secrets | HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, External Secrets Operator |
| Observability | OpenTelemetry, Grafana stack, Datadog |
| Metrics | DORA metrics, Sleuth, LinearB, Faros AI |
Best Practices
- Treat the platform as a product — developers are your customers.
- Opinionated defaults, escape hatches when needed.
- Thin wrappers: don't hide everything — developers should understand what's underneath.
- Measure adoption, not just availability — unused platform = failed platform.
- Golden paths, not golden cages — don't block non-standard approaches.
- Self-service > ticket-based requests for common operations.
- Platform team ≠ ops team — build products, not operate services ad-hoc.
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
- Building a platform nobody asked for or uses.
- Over-abstraction — developers can't debug because they don't understand the underlying system.
- Ticket-based infrastructure provisioning for everything (defeats purpose).
- No documentation — platform adoption requires great docs.
- Building everything custom when open-source solutions exist (Backstage, etc.).
References
references/platform-maturity-model.md— platform maturity levelsreferences/golden-path-templates.md— golden path design guidereferences/dora-metrics-guide.md— measuring developer productivity
Expected Output Format
- Platform component (Terraform module, Backstage plugin, CLI tool)
- Documentation + tutorial for developers
- Adoption metrics dashboard
- Developer experience survey results/feedback