Practical Technology

Some off-the-cuff thoughts after attending a platform webinar yesterday. I've not heard a clear presentation on 'the platform engineering kool-aid' yet, so it was interesting to hear that yes, we continue to look for silver bullets.  However, there were some insights to be taken from it. Platform engineering has some concepts/principles that are useful to understand: Platform requires a certain level of organizational maturity ( you are already doing pipelines and IaC ) Both organizational and engineering vision-clarity ( our value prop is stable, our market share is growing, we understand our JTBD better than ever ) You need scale - while paradigms can be applied from day1, the dividends of platform are most obvious with, let's say, 50 engineers and up. API access to our 'platform' enables automation - i.e. design for programmatic access However, DevOps was presented as 'baby's first platform' - you do pipelines, great - now grow up and do platform ...

Intro - the builder's contribution As a follow-up to ‘ building a better lego brick ’ ( January 2021, huh… ), the last few years have offered me some noodling time on the problem of individuals swimming in the maelstrom of sociotechnical systemic forces. What can one do in the face of such systemic momentum? If everything is ultimately made up of unassailable systemic forces, what is an individual worker - the builder - to do? What’s my job, my contribution, my responsibility? Is there anything to aim for beyond the job description? When there are chronic problems that aren’t just going to go away, do we collapse in a heap and take up goat farming? While animal husbandry seems like an idyllic pursuit, most city by-laws prohibit such activities ( goats are fiends, anyways ). So if you are languishing in the doldrums of a day job, rather let’s talk about what you can do… and that is… contribute! No matter the state of the system we work in, it’s a foundational principle that ...