Steering the Ship: The Art of Navigating a Platform Team to Success

If you've found yourself at the helm of a platform team, you know it's both a thrilling and daunting place to be. You're in charge of the tech backbone that keeps your company standing tall. We're talking about the code warriors who build APIs, database maestros keeping data safe and structured, and security guardians who protect your digital fort from invaders. Together, they're like the engineering Avengers for your business.

Think Fast, Build Strong: The Mighty Platform Team

Imagine you're at a swanky Broadway theater. You don't see the complex rigs and pulleys, but without them, there's no show. That's your platform team. Without a strong tech infrastructure, that 'Open' sign flickers off.

A solid platform team gets the spotlight in stats too. According to the State of DevOps Report, effective platform squads boost deployment frequency by 200 times and lower change failure rates by three times. They're the unsung heroes ensuring your services are running smoothly, making customers stick like honey to your product.

Aligning Stars: The Big Picture

As the captain of this ship, you need to be a bit of a fortune-teller. Dive deep into your company's crystal ball—its business goals and strategies. When you sync the platform's beating heart with the company's pulse, you form a force to be reckoned with.

Take Google, for example. They're not just a search engine; they're a platform powerhouse. As written in Google's philosophy, their infrastructure scales with growth, directly linked to their mammoth success. A platform that evolves with the market's ebb and flow is not a mere luxury; it’s a necessity.

Here are practical ways that you can align your team’s efforts to the big picture:

Understand Business Goals 

The first step is to deeply understand the current business goals and objectives. This involves regular communication with senior leadership, stakeholders, and product teams to gain insights into the company’s strategic direction, financial targets, and customer needs.

Translate Goals into Technical Objectives 

Once the business goals are clear, the next step is to translate these into technical objectives for the platform team. This might involve enhancing scalability, improving reliability, reducing costs, or accelerating development cycles to support business growth or improve customer satisfaction.

Communicate and Collaborate 

Foster a culture of open communication and collaboration between the platform engineering team and other departments. Regular meetings, joint planning sessions, and shared dashboards can help ensure that everyone is aligned and working towards common objectives.

Adopt Agile and Lean Methodologies

Implement agile and lean practices to improve responsiveness and flexibility. These methodologies help the team prioritize tasks that directly impact business outcomes and adapt quickly to changing business needs.

Measure and Demonstrate Impact 

Develop metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that link platform enhancements to business outcomes. Regularly review these metrics to evaluate how well the platform supports business goals and identify areas for improvement.

Continuous Improvement 

Encourage a culture of continuous learning and improvement within the team. Stay updated with the latest technologies and practices that could benefit the business, and be proactive in proposing and implementing solutions that drive business value.

Stakeholder Engagement 

Regularly engage with stakeholders to gather feedback and ensure that the platform meets their needs. This could involve conducting user satisfaction surveys, hosting feedback sessions, and creating user advisory groups.

Educate and Advocate 

Help team members and stakeholders understand the importance of the platform in achieving business goals. Educate them about the technical aspects and advocate for the resources and support needed to maintain and improve the platform.

Align Incentives 

Align the team’s incentives with business outcomes. This could include setting performance objectives that are directly linked to business metrics such as customer retention rates, operational efficiency, or revenue growth.

Leadership and Vision

Finally, as a leader, it’s important to provide a clear vision and direction for the team. Motivate and inspire team members by showing how their work contributes to the broader business goals and impacts the company’s success.

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By integrating these strategies, a platform engineering team leader can ensure that their team’s efforts significantly contribute to achieving the company’s business objectives, while also fostering innovation and operational excellence.

Building the Dream Team

What’s a hero without a squad, right? Structuring your team is like directing an orchestra—each person plays a unique part. Clear roles and win-win collaborations are part of the music. For instance, adopting the ‘pod’ model—something Spotify has immortalized—can spark magic in productivity and innovation.

When is it time to scale the platform engineering team?

Budgets are tighter than ever, and even for mission-critical teams like Platform Engineering, every headcount needs to be justified. So when is the right time to hire? We’ve pulled together a few signals that can help you determine if you need another team member or not:

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1. Increased Demand: Scale when the current team's workload consistently exceeds capacity, impacting delivery times and quality.
2. New Initiatives: If the business is planning new products or features that rely on the platform, it's crucial to scale the team in anticipation of these needs.
3. Technological Advancements: When integrating new technologies or undertaking major updates to the platform, additional skilled personnel might be necessary.
4. After Efficiency Optimization: It’s best to consider scaling only after you've maximized the efficiency of existing processes and team structures to ensure that the expansion is necessary and sustainable.

What skills should a platform engineer have?

These are non-negotiables. Even if someone isn’t 100% in all four areas, strength in at least 2 or 3 of the following skillsets is important.

1. Technical Expertise: Strong background in system architecture, cloud technologies, automation, and relevant programming languages (e.g., Python, Go, Ruby).
2. Systems Thinking: Ability to understand and design complex systems that are scalable, resilient, and maintainable.
3. DevOps and Automation Skills: Proficiency in continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices, infrastructure as code, and automation tools.
4. Security Skills: Knowledge of security best practices and how to incorporate security into the platform from the ground up.

What are some key behaviors a platform engineer should have?

Skills aren’t everything. There are plenty of product engineers or other specialty developers crossing over into the realm of Platform Engineering. So even if someone doesn’t check every box with hard skills, if they crush the qualifications for behaviors, you may just have the right person for the job. Here are four key characteristics of a great platform engineer:

1. Collaboration and Communication: Ability to work effectively with other teams and articulate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
2. Adaptability: Flexibility to adapt to changing priorities and business needs, and the ability to learn new technologies or processes quickly.
3. Problem-Solving: Strong analytical skills with a knack for solving complex technical problems in a systematic way.
4. Leadership: For senior roles, the ability to mentor junior team members, inspire the team, and lead projects effectively.

The Learning League

The tech world is a whirlwind of change. Keeping your team sharp is not just about being on top of trends; it's about ingenuity. Encourage learning ops like Amazon's Machine Learning University, which is open to all and keeps their team cutting-edge. A commitment to continuous learning drives innovation and keeps a team competitive. If you’re leading such a team, cultivating a culture of growth and knowledge is key. Here’s how you can weave learning into the fabric of your daily operations:

Firstly, championing a learning culture starts at the top. When you, as a leader, are passionate about discovering new technologies and improving best practices, your enthusiasm is contagious. Team members are more likely to follow suit when they see you actively learning.

Creating a haven for experimentation can unlock innovative potential. It's about giving room to tinker with new tools and cutting-edge technologies without the worry of high-stakes consequences. These explorative initiatives can spur on better ways of doing things and lead to significant process advancements.

Here are a few practical ways to foster learning:

• Schedule knowledge exchanges, from structured presentations to casual "lunch and learns."
• Allocate blocks of time purely dedicated to learning, making it a fixture of the workweek.
• Develop a resource library filled with curated learning materials for easy team access.

Supporting professional growth is more than just encouraging folks to learn; it’s about providing concrete opportunities. Offer avenues for team members to gain new certifications, learn through courses, and even participate in industry events. These avenues aren't just about skill development; they're a signal to your team that you're invested in their future.

Set up learning objectives during performance reviews that align with individual career paths and the strategic needs of the team. Also, encourage and sponsor attendance at relevant conferences and workshops, which can stretch the horizons of what's possible within your team.

Leverage the power of technology to make learning efficient and collaborative. Online learning platforms like Coursera or Pluralsight offer a plethora of courses that cater to various technical skill sets. Mentoring programs pair up the wisdom of experienced professionals with the fresh energy of newer team members, creating a symbiotic environment for growth. Furthermore, tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams can break down geographical barriers, fostering a collaborative learning culture for remote or dispersed team members.

Embedding these principles into your leadership approach can turn your team into a learning powerhouse, continually evolving and mastering the technological landscape. This isn't just about keeping skills sharp—it's about creating a team that's dynamic, engaged, and abreast of industry best practices, all of which are critical ingredients for enduring success and breakthrough innovation.

Bringing It Home

Leading the charge of a platform team is no cakewalk. It's about bridging the human touch with technology's might. Prioritize candid communication, champion personal growth, and embrace the harmony of work and life. With these strategies, your platform team isn't just surviving; it's thriving, pushing your company to stellar heights.

If you’re looking for ways to reduce the toil of your platform team (and the rest of the engineering organization), you should look into the OpsLevel internal developer portal to see how you can maintain high standards while empowering your team to move fast.

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