Alright, alright, let's go for another Tech on Foot, and today directly from the streets and sidewalks of Seville, Spain. The topic here is Platform Engineering, you know, and the whole mess that is our environment today. Stay tuned because it's going to be a really cool conversation, and I invite you to share your thoughts and opinions down below.
But look, today if you look at the world of DevOps, SRE, and the folks working with containers, it seems like we've created a monster, you know? Because if you look at that CNCF landscape with 300, 400 tools, you think, my God, what madness is this, where did I get myself into? And, look, one thing that's always good to mention is that everything works very well, everything works wonderfully, the applications communicate as long as you know exactly what each one does, right?
There are tons of types, man. Like I said, more than 300 tools, you know? But the conversation I want to have with you is this: think with me here, we keep adding more and more layers of tools and abstractions on top of each other, it's a huge mess.
There's always a tool there, whether it's Kubernetes, then comes Service Mesh, then CI/CD, then observability, then different clouds, then multi-cloud, and then I have to choose which is my best automation tool. Man, it's a lot. And this creates, like, an absurd level of complexity, you know?
Where, I don't know, each solution solves one problem, but at the same time, it ends up creating another problem, or rather, another challenge, you know? When you're there day-to-day configuring a deployment of an application, ensuring resilience, scalability, and all those things, sometimes it feels like you're a hostage to all of this, you know? Because it's so much, so many boxes you have to check, like, did I do this, did I do that, because it's a lot.
And my question is, how did we get to this point where, I don't know, trying to scale an application requires so many layers and so many specialists involved, you know? All of this is the world of DevOps, where we said, hey, we solved a bunch of stuff, look how cool it is, but, man. .
. To deploy, sometimes you need half of the engineering team involved at some point, you know? But then comes the main topic of the video, which is Platform Engineering.
Because Platform Engineering comes into play right at this moment, you know? Bringing an idea, an idea, I don't know. .
. Provocative idea, you know? What if we simplified everything, made it easier to use.
That's the idea behind our beloved Platform Engineering, you know? So, Platform Engineering isn't just a new or trendy concept. It's an attempt to do more, but with less complexity, you know?
Like being able to deliver more things more quickly but with less complexity. It's about taking all these building blocks, you know? These, I don't know, bricks that build these huge buildings here, you know?
Taking all these bricks we've stacked up—containers, automation, observability, and so on—and building something that's easier to use, more, I don't know, accessible for the dev folks who are consuming this and also for the internal teams, right, like SRE, DevOps, and other teams in the company. So, when we're talking about Platform Engineer, I'm not talking about bringing more complexity to the environment, no. What I'm saying is, I want to abstract the complexity so that everyone can use it in a simpler, more straightforward way.
Like consuming and building things without always needing specialists involved at every moment, you know? Think of a platform, like, as a product, instead of the development team having to deal with YAML, Helm Charts, container security, you know? Or understanding the details of Kubernetes networking, which, man, is a hassle.
They should have access to a user-friendly interface, something easy to use that already handles what's needed behind the scenes, you know, that complexity will be on us. An interface that handles all these layers as a service, abstracting complexity and allowing the focus to be on building value, you know? Because you're going to deliver it to the developer, to the person on the other side trying to solve problems, you're going to handle all the complexity, abstract it, and bring only simplicity, you know?
That's what we need to keep in mind. The concept is to transform platform engineering into something frictionless, almost invisible, you know? So that you can deliver value without being overwhelmed by complexity, without having to touch, mess with a bunch of repositories, mess with a bunch of things that could break at any moment, you know?
And what will be the focus? Building. So when we're in Platform Engineering, we're much more concerned with creating new things, building new possibilities for people.
We need to be honest here, Platform Engineering isn't just about taking Kubernetes and throwing a script on top, or grabbing some trendy tool, you know? The backstage is over. It's more than that, it's about creating a development experience that is consistent, productive, you know?
That gives freedom and autonomy without overloading the developer with tools and configurations. In the end, it's about that, you know? Taking the load off the Dev.
Then you might say, "But I don't want to work for the Dev. " You're not working for the Dev; you're part of the mechanism that builds a product and delivers it to the client. That's it, that's what we need to keep in mind, because, man, how many times have you seen a developer super frustrated because they can't do a deploy, you know?
Because the pipeline was set up ages ago and everything's broken, you know? The configuration is like, man, esoteric, you know? It's a mess.
It's a mess. Or how many times do we have to explain the problem of a YAML file missing a space here and there. Platform Engineering is about taking that experience and turning it into something agile and frustration-free, you know?
I think that's the point. We need to start treating technology in a more strategic way. Think about that.
Let me tell you a story, man. We had a client that we helped implement, I don't know, an internal platform, you know. Before, teams took weeks to get anything up and running.
Today, man, a single developer can deploy their application there, man. It's like, super fast. In minutes, you know.
And you know what changed? They stopped being forced to understand how the little piece of infrastructure works. The platform became something invisible.
And productivity skyrocketed, man, absurdly. Because now they just have to fill out, maybe a YAML file, but it's like four lines of YAML, things like that. It's nothing out of this world.
So they can do it easily. They stopped having to understand those annoying little pieces that sometimes we have to spend a lot of time figuring out. That's what I want you to think about.
How do we create an infrastructure that makes a difference? How are you going to create the story in your company, in the infrastructure? Man, it sounds like coach talk, but in the end, it is.
Because we need to go beyond just the tools, we need to think about how to simplify. I want to create my platform, I want someone to come here and just use it simply. You have to put in a huge amount of work for that, you have to know everything, because, let's be honest, even if you're a Python or Golang developer, which people know a lot about, you can't consider yourself a developer in the same way as the devs in your company.
Ah, but I code in Python. Maybe, but not with the same proficiency as him, and likewise, he isn't proficient in the knowledge we need for infrastructure. You see, we need to keep this in mind, think about it, how each of us can, I don't know, contribute to making the day lighter, man.
That's it, that's the point, you know. And in the end, here's the thing, man, to wrap it up, I want to know from you, you know, in the end. Are you ready to change the way you do platform engineering?
Do you have the courage to stop and reflect for a moment, I don't know, about what's working and what's not? Because look, Platform Engineer is the revolution we need to make the development experience easier and more efficient, man, lighter. Comment below what you think about all this.
Do you think Platform Engineer is just hype, or do you agree that it's the solution to our current complexity? Let's open this debate and maybe, man, help our community evolve and simplify this tech world we love so much, right? It's us.
See you in the future, on the corners of this internet. Do that little sign, it's us, and go.
