Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 13 hours ago

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Ian Nowland is the ex-SVP of Core Engineering at Datadog and in this talk, he discusses his experiences in platform engineering.
Ian starts by defining the concept of platform engineering, highlighting its potential in abstracting away complexity and enabling application engineers.
He then digs into the organizational structure at Datadog, highlighting the pros and cons of having a platform engineering organization and finally outlines a three-phase model for developing platforms, from scrappy to scalable to robust.

00:00 Introduction and Background
00:49 Defining Platform Engineering
02:21 The Evolution of Platform Engineering: Promises, Complexity and Challenges
07:39 Organizational Structure at Datadog
15:36 Transitioning from Scrappy to Scalable to Robust Platforms
20:50 Conclusion
21:40 Q&A

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This talk was recorded at Elevate 2023, Plato's flagship engineering leadership conference hosted in San Francisco on Nov 7 and 8 2023.