preface

I’ve been building software systems long before we called them “platforms.” My earliest engineering memories are of wrangling SunOS/IBM AIX machines, running massive semiconductor simulations for programmable logic, and navigating system traffic spikes during primary compute needs, long before the era of ubiquitous computing power. None of us used the term “DevOps” back then; we were just figuring out how to keep things running. However, over the years, I realized that the scaffolding surrounding product teams encompassing invisible systems, abstractions, tooling, and culture was often the difference between sustainable progress and organizational entropy.

Platform engineering gave shape to that intuition. And, over time, I found myself drawn more to the enablers than the end products: CI/CD pipelines, developer portals, paved paths, golden templates, observability stacks. I’ve been fortunate enough to help shape platform strategy across large organizations and startups, from Silicon Valley to global digital firms, and have also been instrumental in setting up the platform engineering practice at Thoughtworks. With this book, I wanted us to distill the accumulated lessons, both technical and human, and offer a hands-on, opinionated, and deeply practical guide for anyone trying to build platforms that empower engineers rather than hinder them.