platformteams

Platform teams are organizational units within software companies tasked with building and maintaining a shared set of internal services, tooling, and infrastructure that other teams use to deliver software. They focus on creating a self-serve platform—an internal product that stream-aligned teams can rely on to develop, deploy, and operate applications more efficiently. The platform typically includes cloud resources, CI/CD pipelines, observability and incident tooling, security controls, data access, and reusable components or services.

Operating as a product team, platform teams are responsible for the platform’s usability, reliability, and evolution. They usually have a platform product manager or platform owner, a defined backlog, and agreed service expectations such as SLAs or service-level objectives. The work emphasizes clear interfaces, good developer experience, and measurable outcomes rather than feature delivery for end users. Close collaboration with product teams and clear governance help ensure the platform remains aligned with downstream needs while maintaining security, compliance, and cost controls.

The relationship between platform teams and product teams is collaborative. Product teams consume the platform to accelerate their own delivery, while platform teams gather feedback, publish documentation, and iterate on capabilities. Metrics often include deployment velocity, cycle time, toil reduction, platform adoption, and incident response effectiveness.

Common benefits include faster delivery, reduced cognitive load and toil, standardized tooling, better security and governance, and visibility into costs. Challenges can include bottlenecks if platform capabilities are overburdened, misalignment between platform and product priorities, and the need to balance stability with developer autonomy. Best practices emphasize treating the platform as a product, providing clear APIs and UX, and maintaining strong feedback loops and governance.