Build vs. buy: The platform engineer’s conundrum

In the pursuit of building internal developer platforms, many engineering teams lose sight of their core objectives—enhancing developer experience and delivering value to customers—by focusing too much on technical intricacies like Kubernetes orchestration and custom monitoring solutions. This phenomenon is likened to a bakery investing excessive effort in constructing ovens rather than perfecting pastries, leading to platforms that struggle with adoption due to their raw building blocks. The text draws parallels with the game development industry, where studios have shifted from creating their own engines to using established ones like Unreal Engine to streamline processes and focus on innovation. It argues for leveraging existing platform solutions to avoid reinventing the wheel, as modern off-the-shelf platforms like Northflank offer extensibility, integration capabilities, and the ability to deploy across environments, ultimately allowing teams to concentrate on developing features that drive customer satisfaction and business growth.