Stories

Are we there yet? Building an Internal Developer Platform

In this talk, I’ll share a case study on building a platform from the ground up. I’ll discuss what drives the decision to build the platform, the trade-offs to make, and how to evolve it once you have it in place.

“We’ll get there.” These are the words you say in response to the preverbal “Are we there yet?” Building an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) is not so much of a choice as it is an eventuality. The only question is, are you intentionally building one or not? Undifferentiated engineering is required for all software companies; not everything you do will set you apart from your competitors and generate value directly for your customers. Another question is, how do you do exactly the right amount of undifferentiating engineering to create the most value for your customers? In this talk I’ll discuss a decade of hard lessons I’ve learned about building platforms, most recently with the Interstate Platform at Total Expert. I’ll cover the pitfalls, the fun part, the hard part, and the really hard part that you should focus on to have a successful IDP program at your company.