Platform engineering is becoming one of the most mission-critical aspects of modern software development.
As companies continue to iterate on cloud services, use platforms, new technology, AI, and other tools, they face big challenges. How can they help their application developers work more efficiently while maintaining security?
The answer is building strong internal development and application platforms. These platforms give engineers the tools they need without slowing them down.
In this article, we take a closer look at platform engineering best practices and the best ways to leverage platform engineering successfully.
Key Takeaways:
- Platform engineering boosts developer speed and efficiency.
- Built-in security and automation reduce risks and errors.
- Clear visibility and cost control keep cloud use sustainable.
Why Platform Engineering Matters Now
Software development is increasingly complex.
Most organizations now run dozens or hundreds of containers, applications, and other systems across different cloud providers. Every app and container cluster needs its own setup, monitoring, security controls, and way to deploy code. This complexity creates numerous problems for software engineering teams.
Businesses with skilled platform engineering teams deploy code faster and more often than those without. They can also recover from problems more quickly. Spending less time on manual infrastructure provisioning tasks frees up engineers to work on more valuable projects.
This isn't just about efficiency. It's about staying competitive. Companies that can release features quickly, reliably, and without bugs have a huge advantage over slower-moving competitors. Platform engineering is integral to these teams' success. This article is designed to help your team become more successful at platform engineering.
Below are five best practices that platform engineers need to follow.
5 Best Practices for Platform Engineers
Platform engineering is a skilled discipline, and it takes skill, discipline, and plenty of automation to make the best platforms run effectively.
1. Design for Self-Service
The first and most crucial rule for any platform engineer is to make application developers independent. Your platform should let teams set up cloud infrastructure and deploy applications without waiting for help from the operations or DevOps team. This is what we call self-service capabilities.
However, you don’t need to give engineers unlimited access to everything in your cloud infrastructure. Instead, create safe boundaries that keep systems secure.
At the same time, it’s smart to remove friction from the most common tasks. A smart platform engineer knows how to balance freedom with safety.
Good self-service capabilities include several key elements:
- Simple interfaces that don't require deep technical knowledge about cloud infrastructure
- Pre-made templates for common uses that application teams need regularly
- Clear guides and examples that show software engineers and developers exactly how to use each tool
- Quick feedback when something goes wrong, so problems get fixed fast
- Automatic approval for standard requests that meet security requirements
DuploCloud's AI-powered approach shows how this works in practice. Developers can provision complex cloud infrastructure with simple clicks instead of learning complicated infrastructure languages. DuploCloud handles the technical details while maintaining security and compliance standards.
2. Automate Everything Within Your Platform
Manual setup doesn't work as your software engineering team scales. Or as your applications and the underlying infrastructure complexity scales.
Every manual step creates a chance for mistakes and delays. Automation is essential to keep things consistent and reduce human error.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) should be the foundation of every platform. This means treating your infrastructure setup like any other codebase. All infrastructure changes should go through version and quality control (QA), just like application code.
Your automation should cover many different areas:
- Setting up and tearing down test environments quickly
- Creating continuous deployment pipelines that work the same way every time
- Running security scanning and compliance checks automatically
- Scaling resources up or down when demand changes
- Handling backup and disaster recovery without human intervention
- Managing permissions and access controls consistently
Platform engineering team should also automate common requests from application teams. Instead of manually creating databases or setting up monitoring, the platform can handle these tasks automatically when developers need them.
DuploCloud includes prebuilt automation for Kubernetes, networking, and identity management. This saves teams months of setup time and reduces the chance of configuration mistakes.
3. Embed Security from the Start
Security can't be added later in platform engineering. Security controls need to be built into your platform design from day one. This approach is called "shifting left," is about handling security early in the process instead of at the end.
This means every infrastructure template should include robust and compliant security settings. The platform engineering team should include controls for important standards like SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI.
Security automation should cover several areas:
- Automatic vulnerability scanning of all code and containers
- Network security rules that protect applications without blocking legitimate traffic
- Identity and access management that gives people exactly the permissions they need
- Encryption of data, both when it's stored and when it moves between systems
- Audit logging that tracks who did what and when they did it
DuploCloud's approach to security and compliance shows how this works. The platform includes preconfigured controls for SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, and other standards. Teams can achieve compliance in days instead of months because the controls are built into every infrastructure deployment.
4. Make Everything Visible
CTOs can't manage what they can't see. Monitoring should be built into your platform from the start, not added later.
This means every application deployed through your platform automatically gets:
- Structured logs that are easy to search
- Performance metrics that track response times and errors
- Tracing that shows how requests move through your system
- Alerts that notify the application team when problems happen
DuploCloud provides native integrations with popular observability tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki. This gives teams production-ready monitoring without the setup complexity.
5. Track and Control Costs
Cloud infrastructure costs can grow quickly. The last thing you want is them growing out of control. Your platform should give teams clear views of their resource usage and spending.
This doesn't mean restricting everything. It means providing information that helps teams make smart decisions. When app devs see how much their applications cost to run, they naturally become more efficient.
Good cost management includes:
- Real-time dashboards showing usage and costs
- Automatic scaling that reduces resources during quiet periods
- Suggestions for right-sizing over-provisioned resources
- Budget alerts that notify teams before costs get too high
Ready to transform your development workflow? Discover how DuploCloud can accelerate your platform engineering journey with proven automation, built-in security, and enterprise-grade compliance capabilities.
Now, let’s look at common mistakes to avoid, real-world benefits, the future of platform engineering, and what it means for your team.
3 Common Platform Engineering Mistakes to Avoid
Even skilled and well-planned platform engineering projects can go wrong. Here are the three most common mistakes:
Making the platform too complex. This happens when teams try to solve every possible problem at once. Start simple and add features based on what engineers actually need, not what you think they might need.
Not involving developers in platform design. Unfortunately, this leads to tools nobody wants to use. Regular feedback sessions should guide your platform development.
Poor documentation makes even the best platform hard to use. Invest in clear guides, examples, and training materials that help new users get started quickly.
Real-World Benefits of Robust Platform Engineering
When platform engineering is done right, the benefits show up quickly across the entire software development organization, tech stack, and the outputs from the software, engineering, DevOps, and platform teams.
Application developers become more productive because they spend less time waiting and more time coding. The DevOps team becomes more strategic because they're building tools instead of handling routine requests.
DuploCould improves platform engineering by providing a comprehensive platform that handles infrastructure automation, security, compliance, and cost optimization. Instead of spending months building basic capabilities, teams can focus on customizing workflows for their specific needs.
The real-world impact is significant. Companies using DuploCloud typically see:
- 75% reduction in time to market for new applications
- Built-in compliance that passes audits on the first try
- 30-50% reduction in cloud infrastructure costs
- Higher developer satisfaction due to reduced friction
This approach works especially well for companies that want the benefits of platform engineering but don't have the resources to build everything in-house.
Platform Engineering’s Future
Platform engineering continues to change as new technologies emerge. We expect even more automation in the future, with AI helping to optimize infrastructure decisions and solve problems before they affect users.
However, the core principles and best practices of platform engineering stay the same. Effective and efficient platform engineering helps software development teams while keeping security and compliance strong. It removes friction from common tasks while providing safety rails for complex operations.
A skilled platform engineer knows how to balance developer experience with operational needs. They understand that the best tool is one that developers actually want to use.
What Platform Engineering Means for Your Team
Companies that get platform engineering right will have a big advantage. They'll ship features faster, maintain higher reliability, and adapt more quickly to changing market conditions.
Whether you're a platform engineer just starting out or part of an established platform engineering team, focus on these key areas:
- Make application deployment as easy as possible
- Give your software engineering team the self-service capabilities they need
- Build security into every tool and process
- Monitor everything and make the data easy to understand
- Help teams understand and control their costs
Remember, the goal isn't to replace engineers with automation. It's to help them focus on what matters most – building great software that serves customers.
Ready to transform your development workflow? Discover how DuploCloud can accelerate your platform engineering journey with proven automation, built-in security, and enterprise-grade compliance capabilities.
Platform Engineering Best Practices Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What's the difference between DevOps and platform engineering?
DevOps focuses on collaboration between development and operations teams, while platform engineering creates self-service tools that reduce the need for that collaboration. Platform engineering is an evolution of DevOps practices, not a replacement.
Do all companies need a platform engineering team?
Not always. Smaller teams might manage with DevOps, but as systems scale, platform engineering becomes more helpful for speed and consistency.
How does platform engineering improve developer experience?
It removes friction by automating setup, giving self-service access, and making it faster to deploy and test applications.
