DevOps brings applications and product development closer to operations to shorten the feedback loop and speed up its processes. But what if we rebranded DevOps as “platform engineering”? This rebranding would be a more accurate description of what DevOps practitioners do, and it would help clarify the role of DevOps engineers. This post will explore the benefits of rebranding DevOps as “platform engineering” and discuss some possible objections. Please, join in the comments section below. I would love to hear what you have to say about it.
DevOps was defined more as a philosophy or framework than a simple job description. As the market saw its benefits and slowly tried to implement this philosophy, it became a descriptive list of what people should know and do instead of how teams should interact and improve their outcomes.
While you can clearly state the name of some other teams, like product and application teams, and have a good understanding of what they are doing, you can’t immediately capture the full assortment of responsibilities that the term DevOps encompasses.
On the other hand, the team who consume the services provided by a “DevOps Team” don’t have an obligation to know what they do, as long as they keep CI/CD workflows and production running. In summary, we are getting to the point where we will start to separate development and production again. Yes, can you believe it?
What if we connect the DevOps to the stack that delivers the final product, not as a separate part but as an essential component? As the team that develops the platform on which the applications depend and are running on top? We might have a chance to keep the benefits of the DevOps philosophy and improve the entire product and applications view of what this critical team does.
What do you think? I would love to hear from you.