PlatformCon is my favorite time of year for a number of reasons. But the most important of all is the learning. I can get the chance to watch 100s of talks, and talk to dozens and dozens of incredibly interesting people from across the platform engineering universe.

I was able to get a sneak preview of ClearRoute’s State of the Route to Live 2025 report, which is based on their analysis of data from 30 Route-to-Live (RTL) assessments across $2 billion in engineering spend.

Here are 3 of the myths they highlight in the report that surprised me:

Myth 1: More process = More safety. Over-governance more often just leads to unnecessary delays and unread signoffs, rather than improved safety. Whereas, teams that simplified and implemented "compliance as code" saw delivery time improve and change failure rates drop by 64%.

Myth 2: More QA = Higher quality. Excessive manual QA actually WORSENED outcomes. Teams with more testers than developers had 43% more defects. Those with automated, well-integrated tests, though, resulted in an 81% reduction in post-deployment defects.

Myth 3: Engineers naturally align with business goals. As someone battle tested in the art of helping teams adopt platform engineering, this one didn’t surprise me, but what does surprise me is how often leaders assume engineers will naturally care about business goals. 

Leadership & engineers 9/10 times are not speaking the same platform love language. And it causes challenges every single time.

The report is still in its final stages, but I will share it here when it’s done.

Not often you get to zoom in on learnings from 2b in spending.