Stop ignoring the expert operators as platform users!

Platform teams often design for application developers, but overlook another critical user: the expert operators, or internal "vendors" or producers, who create, run, and evolve platform capabilities. The most successful platforms behave like marketplaces, where multiple producers offer services to consumers, enabling a rich ecosystem of individual services and higher-level, composable experiences.

This talk reframes platform engineering through that lens, introducing operators and capability providers as first-class customers. Drawing on lessons from the CNCF ecosystem and years of platform evolution, it explores how API-first self-service, clear ownership, and full-lifecycle thinking enable "multiplayer" internal platforms that scale beyond a single team and deliver lasting organizational value.