"First temptation? Tools. "Let's use Backstage for service scaffolding!""Let's go with ArgoCD!""Wait, what about Crossplane?" It took one tense meeting to realize we were grabbing knives before deciding what to cook. So we paused and asked: What journeys should a dev complete without opening a Slack thread? What needs to be self-served? What's our "platform MVP"? We weren't building a cathedral.We were starting with one dish: deploying a backend service safely. We chose principles first:✅ GitOps for consistency✅ IaC for transparency✅ Guardrails, not gatesThe tech came after."
"The dish we picked? "New backend service → CI → deploy → rollback" Sounds simple. Wasn't. Some devs were skeptical."Isn't this just another infra ticket wrapped in a CLI?" But we mapped every touchpoint: GitHub push triggers GitHub Actions → container build ArgoCD syncs the Helm chart to Kubernetes Sentry, Prometheus, Grafana wired in"
Platform engineering begins by addressing developer chaos and choosing principles before tools. The initial focus targeted one clear journey: deploying a new backend service through CI to deployment and rollback. The team prioritized GitOps, Infrastructure as Code, and guardrails over gates to ensure consistency, transparency, and safe self-service. The implementation mapped every touchpoint, from GitHub push and GitHub Actions building containers to ArgoCD syncing Helm charts to Kubernetes, and integrated observability with Sentry, Prometheus, and Grafana. The approach emphasized a minimal platform MVP to deliver tangible developer value first.
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