At PlatformCon London just a few months ago, we opened with a panel “What does great platform engineering look like?”. Within the first 5 minutes, the panelists had all agreed. Great platform engineering is about starting small with an MVP, having a product mindset, measuring properly, and building a platform designed for you and your needs, which delivers on results. Unsurprising stuff for long term readers.

So why when moderator Sam asked the audience, “how many of you by that definition have great platforms?” Less than 5 out of 700 raised their hand… Oof.

We want to change that. It’s the platform engineering community’s #1 goal. Here is a piece of how we’re doing that in the Platform Engineering University.

1. Platform Engineering Practitioner & Platform Engineering Professional: These two certifications you’re already familiar with give you everything you need to know about what great PE looks like, alongside templates and structures you can use to help you accomplish it.
2. Platform Engineering Certified Leader: This will ensure you know what it takes to lead a platform engineering initiative (or ensure your boss knows what’s going on).
3. Cloud Development Environments for Platform Engineers (Free): Zoom in on CDEs, how they intersect with platform engineering and how they help drive your platform engineering (and AI) initiatives
4. Kubernetes Cluster Lifecycle Management in Platform Engineering (Free): Use automation, GitOps, and policy-as-code approaches to create your self-service platforms
5. Observability for Platform Engineering (Free): Master modern observability and see how to integrate it by design into your platform

Don’t know where to start? Take the (free) introduction to platform engineering course at platform engineering university.