If you’ve ever heard terms like DevOps, SLOs, SRE, or platform engineering and thought, “Wait, what are these exactly?”—you’re not alone.
That’s why I’m excited to share this new episode of Agile State of Mind with João Alves, where we break down what platform engineering is, why it’s a hot topic in tech right now, and how it connects to the way modern teams build and operate software.
João brings his experience from Adevinta, where he transitioned from Engineering Manager to Head of Engineering, and he walks us through these concepts in a very human, story-based way (you’ll love the electricity-as-an-abstraction example ⚡️).
So... What Is Platform Engineering?
In simple terms:
Platform engineering is about making life easier for product teams.
It provides the tools, services, and standards that let product teams focus on solving business problems instead of worrying about how to deploy, secure, or scale their code. Think of it like building a paved road - Joao calls it a golden path - so every team doesn’t have to machete their way through the jungle every time they launch a feature.
A platform team acts a bit like internal product engineers, creating reusable services and automation that improve reliability and reduce “cognitive load”-that’s tech-speak for all the stuff engineers need to keep in their heads.
Why Now?
Back in the day (okay, 2017), DevOps was all the rage. The idea was “you build it, you run it.” That gave teams full responsibility—and sometimes overload.
Now, with systems becoming increasingly complex, platform engineering steps in to manage that complexity. João put it well:
Platform engineering is about leverage - a small team making a big difference by enabling others to move faster and more safely.
Is This Just for Big Companies?
Not at all. Even small teams benefit from having some basic internal tooling and standards. João explains that whether you’re a team of 50 or 5000, platform engineering is about scale, trust, and prioritization. You don’t need to go full-on enterprise mode—start small and grow intentionally.
Some Key Concepts We Covered
We unpacked a bunch of terms that you’ll see popping up again and again. For example:
DevOps: A culture and set of practices to streamline software delivery.
SLOs (Service Level Objectives): Targets for how well a service should perform for users.
SRE (Site Reliability Engineering): Engineers who build tools to keep services reliable and reduce manual work.
IaaS / PaaS / SaaS: Different layers of cloud service models (Infrastructure, Platform, Software as a Service)—and yes, you can have internal “SaaS” products too! E.g. a messaging service in your product.
If that felt like a lot, don’t worry. I’m starting a series of short episodes and blog posts explaining each of these in bite-sized pieces.
So if you want a friendly intro to all this (without having to pretend you already know it), subscribe to this newsletter and follow the podcast. It’s going to be a fun and jargon-free ride.
Read more:
Internal Platforms - Article by João Alves
Let a 1,000 flowers bloom. Then rip 999 of them out by the roots. - Article by Peter Seibel recommended by João in the podcast
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