Managing Platform Teams: How to Build and Structure Platform Engineering?

Level-up Engineering

Interview with Camille Fournier, Managing Director and Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma. She talks about the role of platform teams, the most important skills for platform engineers, creating smooth communication with product teams and more!

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In this interview we're covering:

• Definition of a platform engineering team
• Differences between product and platform engineering
• Priority differences for product and platform teams
• Communication channels between product and platform teams
• Communication challenges in platform teams
• Necessary skills for platform engineers
• The time to create a platform engineering team

Excerpt from the interview:

"Communication works best when a product team reaches out directly to a team in the platform organization. They can communicate quickly about what they need and find a solution. The more you involve senior leadership in early stages, the slower and more complex the process can be.

Sometimes you don’t have a choice but to escalate the situation because the platform team you’re in contact with lacks the bandwidth to address your problem. I aim to provide flexibility for my platform teams to work with their product counterparts, but it has to be balanced.

If the platform team is constantly working on fulfilling one-off requests, it hurts productivity. If you see that happening, you need to figure out what the product teams are trying to do, and plan ahead to provide the necessary tooling."

Click here to read the full interview!