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EngineeringProcess5 min read
The platform team trap
Every growing engineering org builds a platform team. Most of them end up serving themselves more than the rest of the company.
At some company size, the math says you need a platform team. The platform team builds infrastructure that the product teams use. Six months in, the platform team is busy. Two years in, the platform team is the constraint.
Symptoms of the trap
- Product teams maintain workarounds because the platform doesn't support what they need.
- Adding anything to the platform requires consulting the platform team.
- Platform team velocity is the bottleneck for company velocity.
- Most platform work is invisible to the people it's supposed to serve.
The way out
Treat the platform team like an internal product team with customers. Measure their work by what the rest of the company can ship. Make it possible to extend the platform without going through them. Otherwise you've built a bottleneck that's hard to spot.
If the platform team is busy, the rest of the company is waiting.