You’ve spent years mastering infrastructure automation, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud architecture. Now, platform engineering is redefining how top organizations scale software delivery - and you’re wondering what it takes to make the leap.
Platform engineering isn’t about abandoning your DevOps or SRE expertise. It’s about elevating it. Instead of managing production systems directly, you’ll build the platforms and golden paths that empower every other developer to do so safely and efficiently.
The shift from operational execution to platform-as-product thinking requires a new blend of skills: technical depth, user empathy, and a product mindset.
Why platform engineering is the next step for DevOps and SRE professionals
The DevOps movement promised that teams could “build it and run it” end to end. In reality, most engineers spent more time configuring tools than shipping features. The complexity of Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, and a dozen other systems introduced friction, not freedom.
Platform engineering evolved to solve that. According to the State of Platform Engineering Report, 93% of top-performing organizations now rely on dedicated platform teams, and yet 62% struggle to find qualified platform engineers.
That talent gap makes this one of the most in-demand career transitions in tech today.
The mindset shift: From systems to products
In DevOps, you respond to tickets. In platform engineering, you design experiences. Your internal customers are developers - and like any users, they have pain points, preferences, and goals.
To succeed, you’ll need to:
- Conduct developer interviews and map their SDLC pain points
- Define MVPs that solve real adoption blockers, not just technical puzzles
- Build golden paths that abstract complexity but preserve autonomy
- Measure success through developer experience and business impact
You’re not just an operator anymore. You’re building the internal product that powers your company’s software ecosystem.
Core skills to develop
Platform orchestration and self-service
You already understand infrastructure-as-code. Now expand into policy-driven configuration management - building self-service workflows that enforce compliance, cost, and security automatically.
Developer portals and golden paths
Learn to structure developer portals with service catalogs, templates, and plugins that streamline onboarding and standardize workflows. By 2028, Gartner predicts 85% of organizations with platform teams will provide these portals - up from 60% today.
AI, observability, and security integration
The next generation of platform engineers are enabling AI-driven workloads, observability automation, and vulnerability management — ensuring speed doesn’t come at the expense of safety.
How certification accelerates the transition
Platform engineering is a new discipline - and formal education paths are just now catching up. That’s why the Platform Engineering Certified Practitioner course was designed specifically for DevOps and SRE professionals making this move.
In five weeks, it helps you:
- Master the fundamentals of platform design and product thinking
- Build your first Internal Developer Platform (IDP) hands-on
- Learn how to define and implement golden paths
- Connect with a global community of engineers on the same journey
It’s a structured roadmap to turn your operational expertise into platform mastery.
Your Next Step
The shift from DevOps to platform engineering is an evolution. You already have the technical foundation. Now it’s about expanding your mindset, sharpening your product instincts, and learning to deliver value at scale.
Start your transition today with the Certified Practitioner course, or explore the full certification path from Practitioner to Leader, Professional, and Architect.
👉 View all Platform Engineering certifications
