Understanding Platform Engineering: Principles, Tools, and Emerging Trends

In the rapidly evolving software development landscape, platform engineering has emerged as a new function within engineering teams, with over 20,000 LinkedIn profiles holding the title and 220,000 for adjacent DevOps roles. Platform engineering formalizes internal processes and tools to support developers, and Next47 aims to productize successful team practices for the broader software community.

Platform engineers manage tools that bridge developers and DevOps, enabling self‑service, automation, and adherence to DevOps best practices, thereby freeing DevOps teams from repetitive bottleneck work and providing developers with a production "golden path." This mirrors the original DevOps movement’s goal of reshaping workflows, responsibilities, and organization structures to improve collaboration.

While some view platform engineering skeptically—as merely a re‑branding of DevOps or an unwanted abstraction layer—customizable frameworks can benefit engineers of all skill levels, from new hires to full‑stack experts, even those who prefer low‑level systems like Kubernetes.

We believe platform engineering is still in its early stage; companies are experimenting with tools and internal practices. Our market map identifies six categories closely tied to platform‑engineering principles: internal developer portals, infrastructure as code, platform orchestration, environments, deployment, and incident management.

Internal Developer Portal

An internal developer portal offers a modular SaaS interface for developers, typically featuring a service catalog, repository scaffolding/project generation tools (e.g., cookiecutter), and custom toolchain integration (including Kubernetes, CI/CD providers, and secret managers). Spotify’s open‑source Backstage is a prominent example.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

IaC turns infrastructure configuration into code, ensuring environments are repeatable, scalable, and maintainable. Combined with CI/CD pipelines, it enables seamless, automated code flow from development to deployment, and future AI/ML integration promises smarter automation and predictive fault detection.

Platform Orchestration

Platform orchestration simplifies the transition between local development environments and cloud‑based infrastructure, acting as a bridge that integrates new software with legacy systems and automates scalability, allowing engineers to focus on design and service delivery.

Environments

Hosted development environments can cost millions of dollars annually. This category emphasizes reducing conflicts, lowering costs, and boosting developer efficiency through isolated, short‑lived environments that accurately simulate production resources, whether on‑premise, in the cloud, or in the browser.

Deployment and Hosting

Deployment and hosting connect code directly to infrastructure, providing efficient deployment, monitoring, and multi‑region support. Companies such as Vercel, Railway, and Koyeb offer cloud‑native solutions that simplify hassle‑free deployment.

Incident Management

Incident management tools help shorten downtime and uncover root causes when services fail, are compromised, or experience traffic spikes. Effective tools, like Incident.io, embed post‑mortem learning into company culture.

Disruption Guide

Key considerations for platform‑engineering startups include pricing models (targeting DevOps budgets rather than headcount), identifying collaboration hotspots where developers face DevOps bottlenecks, and balancing ROI and efficiency for small teams versus large enterprises.

Conclusion

Platform engineering envisions a future where developers can autonomously configure new applications without becoming infrastructure experts. Achieving this requires upfront effort from platform engineers and DevOps teams to define best practices, and the field is expected to grow substantially. For further discussion, reach out via Twitter @coltondempsey and @whoiskatrin.