Platform engineering often focuses on tooling, workflows, and infrastructure, but usability and effectiveness depend on the perspectives of those who build and maintain platforms.
This talk features two CNCF Community Leaders - an OpenTelemetry contributor and Merge-Forward Lead, and a CNCF Ambassador - who work with platform stacks. They will explore how engineers with varied experiences influence design, operation and scaling, highlighting areas like abstraction boundaries, self-service workflows, API touchpoints, onboarding paths and documentation.
Attendees will discover practical strategies to improve adoption and maintainability by refining decision-making processes, optimizing feedback loops, and encouraging greater team participation within CNCF technical groups. By integrating diverse perspectives, platforms become easier to use, scalable, and adaptable, ultimately contributing to the overall sustainability of the ecosystem.