welcome

We're thrilled to have you on this journey as we explore the world of building and optimizing developer-centric platforms. To fully benefit from the book, you will need experience in software development, DevOps practices, and cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes. If you’re familiar with continuous integration, delivery, and observability, you’re in the perfect place to take your skills to the next level.

In Effective Platform Engineering, we create platforms that empower developers and reduce operational complexity. You’ll learn how to build self-service platforms that enable teams to focus on delivering business value without getting bogged down by day-to-day operations. We share our collective experience of transforming organizations with real-world strategies that can drive developer autonomy, improve efficiency, and accelerate digital transformation. From understanding foundational platform principles to incorporating advanced features like Generative AI, this book will guide you every step of the way.

We’ve also made sure to weave practical exercises and real-life scenarios throughout the book, giving you hands-on experience in solving platform engineers' daily challenges. You will encounter case studies based on real organizations demonstrating how platform engineering can be a game-changer for businesses. These exercises will take you through scenarios such as optimizing cloud infrastructure, reducing cognitive load for developers, and aligning platform capabilities with business goals. This approach ensures that by the end of the book, you’ll understand the theory and have practical tools and techniques to apply in your work.

We truly believe that platform engineering is more than just a technical discipline—it’s a way to unlock creativity and collaboration across your teams. Our goal is to provide you with actionable insights and techniques to help you design platforms that are not only powerful but also sustainable and easy to use. We hope this book becomes a practical companion for you, equipping you with the knowledge and skills to build and refine platforms with confidence.

We’re excited to hear your thoughts and ideas as you progress through the book. Participation in the liveBook Discussion forum is welcomed and crucial for the final product's success. Your feedback and questions will help make this book even better. Together, we can create a vibrant community of platform engineers sharing experiences and learning from one another.

—Ajay Chankramath, Bryan Oliver, Nic Cheneweth, Sean Alvarez