Let's Make Better Mistakes This Time: A Platform Engineering Panel
Submitted to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 on . Rejected.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- Panel Discussion (35 minutes - 3-5 speakers)
- Track
- Platform Engineering
Abstract, as submitted
You've been tasked with building a developer platform - again. Each time we think we've got it - from ITIL to DevOps to SRE, and now platform engineering - we find ourselves repeating familiar mistakes. Isn't it time we did things differently?
Join our panel, moderated by Whitney Lee, with panelists who've worked with the likes of Mercedes, JP Morgan Chase, Home Depot over the past 20 years to build and improve platforms. You'll learn what they messed-up to help you avoid repeating history.
Among other topics we'll discuss: (1) building the platform, (2) getting people to use it and love it, (3) changing the way people work, (4) organization structure and roles, (5) dealing with executive "assistance."
Whitney, John Willis, Coté, and Justin Reock will leave you with helpful advice the can be applied when you get back to work and want to start improving how your platform engineering team works.
This is the text that went into the CFP form, kept as submitted - not a later rewrite of it. Talks get retitled and reworked between submission and stage, so what was actually delivered may differ.
Notes to the CFP reviewers
Not part of the public abstract - this is what the program committee saw and the audience never does.
Thanks for taking the time to consider this panel :)