Platform Engineering: Build Scalable & Resilient Systems

A warm welcome to the Platform Engineering: Build Scalable & Resilient Systems course by Uplatz.

Platform Engineering is a discipline in software development focused on building and maintaining an internal platform that enhances the productivity and efficiency of developers and operations teams. The goal is to provide reusable, scalable, and automated infrastructure solutions that streamline the software development lifecycle, enabling faster delivery of applications.

In essence, platform engineering allows for the creation of a standardized, highly automated environment where developers can focus on writing code, while platform engineers manage the complexity of the underlying infrastructure. This leads to improved developer experience, faster deployments, and reduced operational overhead.

Key Aspects of Platform Engineering:

1. Internal Developer Platform (IDP): Platform engineers design and build IDPs, which are custom platforms tailored to meet the specific needs of the development teams within an organization. These platforms typically abstract away complex infrastructure concerns, providing a unified and self-service environment where developers can easily deploy, monitor, and manage their applications.
2. Automation: A core principle of platform engineering is automation. This includes automating infrastructure provisioning (using Infrastructure as Code), CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and logging. The aim is to reduce manual intervention and repetitive tasks.
3. Self-Service Capabilities: The platform provides self-service tools, allowing developers to independently create environments, deploy applications, and troubleshoot issues without relying on other teams (such as DevOps). This boosts developer autonomy and shortens development cycles.
4. Scalability and Reliability: Platforms built by platform engineers are designed to scale with the needs of the business. They integrate fault-tolerance, monitoring, and observability to ensure high availability and reliability, crucial for large-scale applications.
5. Collaboration between DevOps, Security, and Developers: Platform engineering bridges the gap between DevOps teams, developers, and security teams. It aligns infrastructure, tooling, and workflows with the requirements of each group, ensuring compliance, security, and faster software delivery.

How Platform Engineering Works:

1. Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Platform engineers use IaC tools (like Terraform, Ansible, or Pulumi) to automate and manage the underlying infrastructure, ensuring it can be provisioned and maintained consistently across different environments (development, staging, production).
2. CI/CD Pipeline Integration: They integrate Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines into the platform. This involves tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or GitHub Actions to automate testing, building, and deployment processes.
3. Containerization and Orchestration: Platform engineers leverage containers (e.g., Docker) and orchestration platforms (like Kubernetes) to abstract applications from the underlying infrastructure, making deployments consistent and scalable across environments.
4. Observability and Monitoring: Platform engineers implement monitoring, logging, and alerting tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack) to ensure the health, performance, and security of the applications running on the platform. These insights help in proactive troubleshooting and maintenance.
5. Security and Governance: Security best practices are embedded into the platform, such as managing secrets (with HashiCorp Vault), ensuring compliance with organizational standards, and enforcing access control and security policies.
6. Collaboration and Tooling: Tools are designed with usability in mind, allowing developers to access necessary resources through a unified interface (like a dashboard or CLI). This allows for consistent communication between platform engineers and development teams to ensure the platform evolves with their needs.

Platform Engineering – Course Curriculum

Module 1: Introduction to Platform Engineering

• Lecture 1: Define Platform Engineering, its importance, benefits, and challenges. Discuss the future of Platform Engineering.

Module 2: Core Concepts

• Lecture 2: Explore the benefits of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and learn about popular tools like Terraform and Ansible.
• Lecture 3: Understand CI/CD pipelines, their components, and best practices.
• Lecture 4: Learn about self-service platforms, their purpose, and design principles. Explore Platform APIs, their role, and development considerations.
• Lecture 5: Master platform observability, including metrics, logging, and monitoring.
• Lecture 6: Deep dive into platform observability, monitoring, and the future of observability.

Module 3: Cloud-Native

• Lecture 7: Introduction to cloud-native concepts, benefits, and challenges.
• Lecture 8: Real-world examples of cloud-native and its future.
• Lecture 9: Introduction to Kubernetes architecture, components, and cluster management.
• Lecture 10: Container orchestration, deployment strategies, and best practices.
• Lecture 11: Serverless computing, use cases, benefits, challenges, and future.
• Lecture 12: Cloud security, best practices, and common threats.

Module 4: Design Principles and Shell Scripting

• Lecture 13: Understand the design principles behind platform engineering.
• Lecture 14: Recap and connect the terminologies learned so far.
• Lecture 15 & 16: Introduction to Shell Scripting.
• Lecture 17: Implementation of Shell Commands and Cocalc.
• Lecture 18: CHMO – Understanding Programming Basics

Module 5: Kubernetes and Platform Lifecycle

• Lecture 19 & 20: Implementation of Kubernetes.
• Lecture 21: Platform lifecycle management, including planning, development, deployment, and operations.

Module 6: Observability with Grafana

• Lecture 22: Understanding Grafana for observability.
• Lecture 23: Connecting Grafana and other automation tools.
• Lecture 24: Grafana Labs connections.

Module 7: DevOps and Tooling

• Lecture 25: Understanding Jenkins.
• Lecture 26: Connection between Kubernetes and Jenkins
• Lecture 27: DevOps implementation
• Lecture 28: Service connection
• Lecture 29: Platform Engineering documentation
• Lecture 30: Understanding Redhat OpenShift
• Lecture 31: Understanding GitLab

Module 8: Practical Examples and Interview Preparation

• Lecture 32: Practical examples of Platform Engineering and implementation
• Lecture 33 & 34: How to make a resume for Platform Engineering roles
• Lecture 35 & 36: Common Platform Engineering interview questions and answers
• Lecture 37: Tips and rules for interviews
• Lecture 38, 39 & 40: Company-oriented interview questions
• Lecture 41: Top questions and framing answers
• Lecture 42: LinkedIn session

Course Recap

• Final Lecture: Review key concepts, achievements, and next steps.

Benefits of Learning Platform Engineering

1. Enhanced Career Opportunities

Platform engineering is a rapidly growing field with high demand for skilled professionals. By mastering platform engineering, you’ll unlock a wealth of career opportunities, including roles such as:

• Platform Engineer
• Cloud Architect
• DevOps Engineer
• Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
• Software Engineer specializing in Infrastructure
• Technical Lead or Manager

2. Increased Earning Potential

Due to the high demand and specialized skillset required, platform engineers command competitive salaries and benefits.

3. Improved Technical Skills

You’ll gain proficiency in a wide array of cutting-edge technologies and tools, including:

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) (Terraform, Ansible)
• CI/CD Pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD)
• Container Orchestration (Kubernetes)
• Cloud Platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Monitoring and Observability (Prometheus, Grafana)

4. Greater Impact and Influence

Platform engineers play a crucial role in enabling and empowering development teams. You’ll have a direct impact on the efficiency, productivity, and success of the entire organization.

5. Problem-Solving and Innovation

You’ll be challenged to think critically, solve complex problems, and find creative solutions to streamline software delivery and optimize the development experience.

6. Professional Growth and Development

Platform engineering is a constantly evolving field. By staying current with emerging trends and technologies, you’ll ensure continuous professional growth and development.

Career Path in Platform Engineering

The typical career path in platform engineering often starts with roles like:

• Software Engineer/Developer: Gaining experience in building and deploying applications lays a strong foundation for understanding developer needs and pain points.
• DevOps Engineer: Building on development experience, DevOps engineers gain experience in automating and streamlining the software delivery process.
• System Administrator: Experience in managing and maintaining infrastructure can be leveraged to transition into automating infrastructure provisioning and management.

From there, individuals can progress into specialized platform engineering roles, such as:

• Platform Engineer: Focus on designing, building, and maintaining internal developer platforms.
• Cloud Architect: Design and implement cloud solutions incorporating platform engineering principles.
• Site Reliability Engineer (SRE): Focus on ensuring the reliability and performance of the platform and its applications.

With experience and expertise, platform engineers can move into leadership positions like:

• Technical Lead or Manager: Lead and mentor teams of platform engineers.
• Director of Platform Engineering: Oversee the strategy and execution of platform initiatives across the organization.