Welcome to Crafting Platforms
Introducing the book, the craft, and the ideas shaping Platform Engineering
If you’ve been following my Spanish newsletter Principia Machina, you probably know that I’m working on a book about Platform Engineering called Crafting Platforms. The book is currently in development, and I’ll be launching an early access program soon — so stay tuned.
Over the past few years, I’ve found myself solving the same problem again and again. With the rise of cloud computing and the shift of infrastructure closer to developers, engineering teams have reshaped the way they work and think about software delivery. We’ve moved from traditional IT and sysadmins managing servers, networks, and infrastructure, to a DevOps culture designed to bridge the gap between development and operations. It’s now clear that developers can — and often should — take more responsibility for the infrastructure powering their applications.
However, in many organizations, developers neither have the time nor the desire to master infrastructure management. They want to focus on building products that deliver business value. While most of us agree that DevOps is the right direction, many organizations still struggle to make it work in practice.
That, in my view, is what gave rise to Platform Engineering. It doesn’t replace DevOps — it enables it at scale. Platform Engineering formalizes the creation of internal platforms that abstract away the underlying complexity of cloud infrastructure, providing developers with paved roads and self-service capabilities that make them more productive and autonomous. Developers can then focus on writing software while the platform takes care of networking, compute, automation, security, compliance, and scalability — the essential scaffolding that keeps everything running smoothly.
I’ve had the opportunity to tackle this challenge in several organizations, and I’ve never solved it the same way twice. There is no “one-size-fits-all” platform. Every company has its own DNA — its own culture, processes, and constraints. That’s why I believe building platforms is an artisanal craft, not an industrial process. Yes, there are universal principles and foundational components — things like automation, observability, and security by default. However, how you combine them and the trade-offs you make will always depend on your specific context.
Cloud infrastructure, IaC, CI/CD, observability, vulnerability scanning, identity and access management, secrets management, developer portals, and more — these are the basic building blocks of modern platforms. Most of us would agree on that. But which clouds should you use? Which CI/CD stack? Do your engineering values align better with Azure, AWS, or GitLab? What are your compliance requirements? Do you need multi-region deployments, hybrid setups, or on-prem integrations? These are the questions that shape your platform — and there’s never a single right answer. You have to craft it.
And, honestly, the hardest part is not even crafting it, but selling it to the rest of the organization. Make it appealing for others to buy in and move their workloads, pipelines, and processes to it.
With this book, I aim to surface those questions and share the concepts, principles, and lessons I’ve learned along the way. It’s an opinionated take — and that’s intentional. Other engineers may have taken different paths, and that’s perfectly fine. Crafting Platforms isn’t meant to be the ultimate how-to guide. It’s a practical, experience-driven exploration of what I believe to be the timeless foundations of building internal platforms. It’s also a good opportunity for me to research some topics to reinforce my understanding or change my perspective. Platform Engineering is a new discipline, and there is a lot to learn from it.
Alongside the book, I’m preparing a public GitHub repository with all the source code used in the examples and chapters. My goal is to make it hands-on — less academic, more practical. Sometimes, the best way to explain an idea is to demonstrate it in code.
And finally, this newsletter will serve as a companion to the book — a place to share its progress, discuss platform engineering practices, and comment on industry trends. Sometimes I’ll share excerpts, other times short essays or reflections.
If that sounds interesting, be sure to subscribe and follow along. Please help me spread the word by sharing this newsletter.
That’s all for today — more soon about Crafting Platforms and the ideas behind it.