What golden paths need

Gielen explores a common maturity gap in platform engineering: golden paths that struggle to gain traction or prove sustainable. Rather than focusing on tooling or templates, she examines what typically needs to be in place for golden paths to succeed. Drawing on enterprise experience and her work on platform engineering conditions for success, she clarifies:

• Vendor capability vs. enterprise platform
• Platform building blocks vs. platform products
• Product vs. service responsibility
• The enduring activity domains required for platform sustainability

This session positions golden paths as outcomes of structural clarity and sustained stewardship.