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The Role of a Platform

By Satya Addagarla, Josh Atwell, Mik Kersten, Thomas Limoncelli, Steve Pereira, Sara Mazer, Jeff Tyree, Christina Yakomin

Enabling Full-Stack Software Engineers to Their Fullest Potential

A product delivery platform is not just to ship applications but to be a vehicle for standardization that can ease compliance with recommended practices and simplify the daily work of engineers, all while reducing cognitive load.

Doing it right is not easy. It puts a high burden on the platform’s creators, especially if care and attention aren’t dedicated to product management and usability. However, the investment required to provide a capable platform is amortized across teams supported by the platform, and it will grow in value like any other product. It is a requirement for success.

This paper appeals to senior technical leaders who seek to build systems that enable software-engineering teams to work at their fullest potential and quickly deliver quality software and services.

  • Publication Date September 27, 2022
  • Pages 23

Features

  • Clear Guidance

    This paper provides clear guidance to senior technical leaders looking to build systems that enable software-engineering teams deliver value safer and faster.

  • Expert Authors

    This paper is written by expert leaders and developers who have successfully built effect developer platforms in their organizations.

  • Paved Road

    This paper illustrates how well-built platform can reduce cognitive load and lead to enhanced productivity, making compliance with standards easy, while also becoming a competitive advantage.

  • Clear Tactics

    This paper identifies clear tactics to use that have been proven to be effective at building developer platforms.

About the Resource

Adopting a “you build it, you operate it” (YBYO) model requires a company to provide an internal developer platform that enables developers to build and operate their products. This platform can standardize processes and enable (or enforce) recommended practices. However, the platform can potentially overwhelm engineers by increasing their cognitive load. This can lead to burnout, productivity problems, low morale, and high attrition. A well-built platform can reduce cognitive load and lead to enhanced productivity, making compliance with standards easy, while also becoming a competitive advantage.

A product delivery platform is not just to ship applications but to be a vehicle for standardization that can ease compliance with recommended practices and simplify the daily work of engineers, all while reducing cognitive load.

Doing it right is not easy. It puts a high burden on the platform’s creators, especially if care and attention aren’t dedicated to product management and usability. However, the investment required to provide a capable platform is amortized across teams supported by the platform, and it will grow in value like any other product. It is a requirement for success.

This paper appeals to senior technical leaders who seek to build systems that enable software-engineering teams to work at their fullest potential and quickly deliver quality software and services.

Satya Addagarla
Josh Atwell
Mik Kersten
Thomas Limoncelli
Steve Pereira
Sara Mazer
Jeff Tyree
Christina Yakomin
Satya Addagarla

Satya Addagarla

CIO Home Lending at Wells Fargo

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Josh Atwell

Josh Atwell

Multi-disciplined marketing and technology leader who has moved from hands on technology to leading marketing and advocacy teams to improve customer enablement and engagement.

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Mik Kersten

Mik Kersten

Dr. Mik Kersten started his career as a Research Scientist at Xerox PARC where he created the first aspect-oriented development environment. He then pioneered the integration of development tools with Agile and DevOps as part of his Computer Science PhD at the University of British Columbia. Founding Tasktop out of that research, Mik has written over one million lines of open-source code that is still in use today, and he has brought seven successful open-source and commercial products to market. Mik’s experiences working with some of the largest digital transformations in the world has led him to identify the critical disconnect between business leaders and technologists. Since that time, Mik has been working on creating new tools and a new framework for connecting software value stream networks and enabling the shift from project to product. Mik lives with his family in Vancouver, Canada, and travels globally, sharing his vision for transforming how software is built.

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Thomas Limoncelli

Thomas Limoncelli

Thomas Limoncelli is an internationally recognized author, speaker, system administrator, and DevOps advocate. He manages the SRE teams at Stack Overflow, Inc., and previously worked at Google, Bell Labs/Lucent, AT&T, and others. His books include Time Management for System Administrators (O’Reilly), The Practice of System and Network Administration (3rd edition), and The Practice of Cloud System Administration. In 2005, he received the USENIX SAGE Outstanding Achievement Award.

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Steve Pereira

Steve Pereira

Steve Pereira has spent over two decades improving the flow of work across organizations. He’s worked through tech support, IT management, build and release engineering, and as a founding CTO for enterprise SaaS. He serves as lead consultant for Visible Value Stream Consulting, as a board advisor to the Value Stream Management Consortium, Chair of the OASIS Value Stream Management Interoperability technical committee, and co-founder of the Flow Collective to bring flow-focused professionals together. Since 2017, he has been developing and facilitating Flow Engineering to make flow improvement in large organizations accessible, collaborative, and actionable.

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Sara Mazer

Sara Mazer

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Jeff Tyree

Jeff Tyree

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Christina Yakomin

Christina Yakomin

Senior Cloud Architect at Vanguard

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