In Conversation: Camille Fournier and Ian Nowland on Platform Engineering
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Ask Camille and Ian what’s next for platform engineering
For the past 25 years, software organizations have grappled with a persistent challenge: how to manage code, tools, and infrastructure that is shared across multiple teams. Centralized teams often fall short, offering clunky systems, ignoring user needs, and failing to deliver stability and reliability. Small teams experience a different set of challenges, frequently drowning in complexity. The few that have cracked the code embrace a different approach—platform engineering—to create robust, user-friendly platforms.
Join us for a conversation on platform engineering with Camille Fournier and Ian Nowland, coauthors of the O’Reilly book Platform Engineering, and Eric Ledyard, VP of enterprise architecture at Coder. They’ll discuss what platform engineering is (and isn’t), the benefits and value it brings to developers and teams, and the shifts your organization needs to make to truly become a platform-led organization.
Ask questions, learn tricks of the trade, listen to stories, and connect with other readers.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- Understand why the shift to a platform-led organization requires your whole culture to shift
- Learn what platform engineering teams are and are not
- Discover how product and engineering need to work together for success
- Explore the challenges that emerge when you scale platforms
This live event is for you because...
- You want to go beyond the words on the page and ask your own questions.
- You’re looking for ways to improve your own developer platform, or you’re making the switch to platform engineer.
Prerequisites
- Come with your questions for Camille and Ian
- Have a pen and paper handy to capture notes, insights, and inspiration
Recommended follow-up:
- Read Platform Engineering (book)
- Attend Infrastructure & Ops Superstream: Platform Engineering Best Practices (live event)
- Watch CTO Hour with Peter Bell: Platform Engineering–Trends, Challenges, and Success Stories (video)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Monday, December 9, 2024, at 9:00am PT / 12:00pm ET
- Interactive discussion and Q&A (60 minutes)
- This session will be followed by a 30-minute discussion in a breakout room. Join Eric Ledyard, VP of enterprise architecture at Coder, to learn more about Coder and ask your questions. (30 minutes)
Your Hosts and Guests
Camille Fournier
Camille Fournier is an engineering executive and author of the best-selling books Platform Engineering and The Manager’s Path as well as editor of the book 97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know, all from O’Reilly. Previously, she was CTO of Rent the Runway.
Ian Nowland
Ian Nowland has been in the software industry for 25 years, most recently at Datadog, where he was SVP of core engineering. He worked for AWS in its early days (2008–2016) as lead engineer on the launch of Amazon EMR, and he led the EC2 Nitro project for its first five years. He’s currently a cofounder at a stealth mode startup.
Eric Ledyard
Eric Ledyard is a technology leader with over 27 years of experience in the IT industry. Throughout his career, he has led platform engineering teams, contributed as a trusted management consultant, and held pivotal positions such as CTO and SVP at large organizations. He’s also held leadership roles across data center, cloud, SRE, DevOps, value stream management, AI, and SaaS domains.
