Why frontend devs should care about platform engineering

Platform engineering offers significant benefits to frontend development by streamlining project management and reducing complexity through tools like Backstage, an internal developer portal. By centralizing the management of projects and dependencies, platform engineering allows frontend engineers to automate repetitive tasks such as scaffolding and build processes, thus transforming infrastructure from a barrier into an enabler. Backstage serves as a single interface for organizing internal projects, providing a consistent view and simplifying interactions across multiple repositories. It enables teams to manage projects, track ownership, and visualize dependencies, while also allowing customization through plugins that display project-specific information. This approach helps maintain project documentation directly within the portal, ensuring it stays current with the codebase and is easily accessible for new team members. Despite the advantages, the main challenge lies in the adoption and maintenance of these systems as projects evolve, but starting with cataloging commonly used applications can lay the groundwork for a more efficient frontend development process.