Platform Engineering Foundations
Build the internal platform your developers actually want to use. Turn scattered tooling into golden paths, self-service, and a developer experience that helps teams ship faster.
Tuition
$349
Intermediate
Level
4
Modules
8
Lessons
4
Graded quizzes
2
Assignments
8 hours
Estimated time
What you will be able to do
- You will be able to explain what platform engineering is, the developer cognitive-load problem it solves, and how it complements rather than replaces DevOps and SRE.
- You will be able to describe the anatomy of an internal developer platform, including its major planes, the developer portal, and the platform orchestrator that ties them together.
- You will be able to apply platform-as-a-product thinking: identify your platform's users and personas, define a thinnest viable platform, and plan for adoption instead of mandating tools.
- You will be able to design a golden path that takes a developer from idea to production through opinionated defaults, software templates, and guardrails instead of gates.
- You will be able to distinguish self-service from self-support and explain how Infrastructure as Code and GitOps make on-demand provisioning safe, repeatable, and auditable.
- You will be able to analyze developer experience through feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow, and map the friction points in a real developer journey.
- You will be able to measure a platform's impact with DORA metrics, the SPACE framework, and adoption and satisfaction signals, and report them as product outcomes to leadership.
What is inside
4 modules, 8 lessons. Each module ends in a graded quiz and most carry an assignment.
- 01
Foundations: Platform Engineering, DevOps, and SRE
Platform engineering emerged to tame the cognitive load that full DevOps ownership pushed onto every product team. This module defines the discipline, the problem it solves, and how a platform team sits alongside stream-aligned teams in a Team Topologies model. You will see how it complements DevOps and site reliability engineering rather than replacing either.
2 lessons · 5 quiz questions
- 02
The Internal Developer Platform
An internal developer platform is the product a platform team builds. This module maps its major planes using the CNCF platform engineering reference architecture, from the developer control plane and portal down to the integration, security, and resource planes, then reframes the whole thing as a product with real users, a roadmap, and a thinnest viable platform you can ship early.
2 lessons · 5 quiz questions · assignment
- 03
Golden Paths and Self-Service
Golden paths are the opinionated, well-supported routes that carry a developer from idea to production without a ticket queue. This module shows how to design a paved road with sensible defaults, software templates, and guardrails instead of gates, then connects self-service to the Infrastructure as Code and GitOps automation that make on-demand provisioning safe and repeatable.
2 lessons · 5 quiz questions
- 04
Developer Experience and Measuring the Platform
A platform only pays off when developers adopt it and genuinely move faster because of it, so this module treats developer experience as the thing you design for and the thing you must prove. You learn to read developer experience through its three research-backed dimensions (feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow) and to find the friction hiding in a real developer journey. Then you learn to demonstrate value the honest way: DORA's four keys for delivery capability, the SPACE framework for the many faces of productivity, and adoption and satisfaction signals that resist gaming. You leave able to both improve the experience and defend the platform's worth with evidence.
2 lessons · 5 quiz questions · assignment