Effective platform engineering goes beyond tooling—it’s about building a shared foundation between those who create the platform and those who rely on it to deliver value. In this talk, Ahmed Bebars and Sarah Duncan reflect on their experience navigating both sides of the platform journey: Bebars from the operator’s viewpoint, architecting with open-source tools like Kubernetes, and Duncan from the customer side, using those platforms to drive outcomes.

Together, they highlight the importance of collaboration, feedback loops, and a product mindset in fostering adoption and delivering results. The session explores how standardization, open-source solutions, and continuous iteration lead to scalable platforms that empower teams and accelerate product development. Attendees will walk away with practical insights into aligning operator and user needs, improving platform usability, and understanding the broader impact of platform engineering within an organization.