This blog is part of our Platform Engineering series. To gain deeper insight into our vision for Platform Engineering, check out our first post: Platform Engineering vs DevOps: Choosing the Right Approach Scaling Modern Development.

Platform engineering practises vary widely depending on an organization’s size, structure, and goals. For some, it might focus on building reusable infrastructure components and self-service tools, while for others, it could prioritize governance, compliance, or scaling deployment workflows across multiple teams. The flexibility of platform engineering means that defining its responsibilities and scope is critical to aligning with organizational needs.

In this blog, we’ll explore the responsibilities of a platform engineering practice might have and the development workflows that could support its goals.

Responsibilities of a Platform Engineering Practice

The scope of platform engineering should reflect the unique needs of the organization. Smaller organizatoins may focus on enabling core automation, while larger enterprises often require a broader mandate, including governance, multi-cloud strategies and self-service platforms.

The scope of platform engineering shouldn’t be fixed either; it should evolve alongside the organization to ensure a positive developer experience and alignment with business objectives. While there’s no universal blueprint, the following areas are often central to its scope:

1. Building Reusable Components

A core responsibility of platform engineering is developing reusable infrastructure components, such as Terraform modules, CloudFormation templates, and CI/CD pipeline configurations. These building blocks help streamline development processes by providing teams with consistent, reliable tools, reducing redundancy, and saving time.

A simple example of a reusable component is a Terraform module that provisions an AWS S3 bucket with encryption enabled, access logging configured and proper tagging applied.
A more complex example could be a CI/CD pipeline template that integrates with a specific version control system, runs automated tests, and deploys applications to a Kubernetes cluster.

2. Tailored Solutions

In addition to building reusable components, platform engineering teams are responsible for developing tailored solutions designed to meet the unique needs of specific applications or teams. These solutions address specialized requirements that are not reasonable to be standardized across the organization but are essential for enabling functionality, ensuring compliance, or supporting distinct workflows.

For example, a unique data pipeline configuration might be needed to manage specific integrations or implement complex business logic.

3. Enabling Self-Service for Developers

Platform engineering practice usually focuses on creating good self-service tools and workflows. These tools empower developers to manage infrastructure and deployments independently, minimizing reliance on operational teams. Self-service implementations can range from comprehensive internal developer platforms with automatic resource provisioning to lightweight documentation sites that include examples and best practices.

4. Implementing Governance, Compliance, and Security

Governance is a critical pillar of platform engineering, especially for organizations in regulated industries. Platform engineering practices may enforce security, compliance, and operational best practices through mechanisms like landing zones, policy-as-code frameworks, and automated security testing. Optimizing cloud costs is another essential aspect of platform engineering practices.

Additionally, the practice can play a role in establishing organization-wide secure development guidelines and processes.

5. Centralizing Monitoring and Observability

To ensure system health and reliability, platform engineering practices frequently establish centralized monitoring and observability solutions. Centralizing these capabilities not only maintains consistency across teams but also reduces the burden of reinventing the wheel. Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and AWS CloudWatch can be configured centrally to provide actionable insights and standardized dashboards for all projects.

6. Managing Third-Party Tools

The platform engineering team can oversee tools used in software development, such as version control systems, documentation platforms, CI/CD services, and monitoring solutions, ensuring a unified approach across the organization. This centralized management reduces administrative overhead while upholding organizational security and compliance standards.

Additionally, the team can design and implement robust access management and permission structures for these tools, streamlining developer onboarding and offboarding in line with organizational policies and best practices.

7. Providing Specialized Support

Platform engineering team can offer specialized expertise to development and operations teams on demand. This includes troubleshooting issues, onboarding new teams, and optimizing workflows. Beyond day-to-day support, platform engineering can provide guidance on specialized areas like FinOps, security, networking, and CI/CD pipeline optimization, ensuring all teams benefit from deep organizational knowledge.

Platform engineering responsibilities — Examples of platform engineering responsibilities

Platform Development Workflow

Platform engineering teams often operate within sprint cycles to manage planned work while also addressing on-demand requests from development teams. Striking a balance between these two priorities ensures that long-term projects move forward without overlooking urgent needs.

The workflows adopted by platform engineering teams can vary based on an organization’s size, maturity, and objectives. Smaller organizations may benefit from more flexible and lightweight processes, while larger, more complex setups often require structured workflows to drive long-term strategic progress.

Sprint-Based Work

Platform engineering teams often adopt sprint methodologies to structure their work into manageable, time-boxed intervals. During these sprints, the team focuses on predefined tasks such as developing infrastructure components, managing third-party tools, or improving self-service capabilities. This structured approach promotes steady progress and allows for regular assessment and adjustment of priorities.

Handling On-Demand Requests

Despite the structured nature of sprints, unforeseen issues or urgent requests from development teams inevitably arise. To effectively manage these in large organizations while maintaining sprint commitments, platform engineering teams can adopt the following strategies:

Dedicated Support Windows Allocate specific times during the sprint for addressing ad-hoc requests, ensuring that immediate needs are met without derailing planned work.
Triage System Establish a triage process to assess the urgency and impact of incoming requests, allowing the team to prioritize tasks that align with organizational goals.
Buffer Allocation Include a buffer in sprint planning to accommodate potential on-demand work, providing flexibility without over-committing resources.

Balancing Act

Successfully integrating sprint-based work with on-demand support requires clear communication and collaboration between platform engineering and development teams. Regular interactions, such as participating in sprint retrospectives, can help platform engineers understand developer challenges and expect needs. This approach fosters a cooperative environment where both planned and reactive work is managed effectively, ensuring that the platform evolves in alignment with developer requirements and organizational objectives.

Platform engineering development workflow example

Conclusion

The benefits of a well-structured platform engineering practice are clear: increased developer productivity, stronger collaboration, enhanced system reliability, and improved organizational scalability. By streamlining processes and fostering consistency, platform engineering reduces operational overhead while ensuring high standards of security and compliance.

The specific responsibilities and workflows of a platform engineering practice, however, can vary depending on the organization’s size, maturity, and goals. Tailoring these functions to meet unique needs ensures that the platform evolves in alignment with business goals, supporting both current operations and future growth.

What’s next

We’ll continue to explore how platform engineering can evolve to meet the needs of modern organizations. Stay tuned for future posts, where we’ll dive deeper into various aspects of platform engineering.

Ready to transform your organization with platform engineering? Reach out to explore how we can help.

Platform Engineering: Responsibilities and Workflows