What is platform engineering and what problem does it solve?
Platform engineering: Gartner predicts 80% of large software companies will have platform engineering teams by 2026. Problem solved: as organizations adopt microservices and cloud-native, each product team must be a full-stack expert (Kubernetes, Terraform, observability, CI/CD, security). Cognitive overload slows delivery. Platform team builds the IDP (Internal Developer Platform) — the "paved road" — so product teams get opinionated, working defaults for all infrastructure concerns. Key principle: treat developers as customers. Platform team measures success by developer productivity, not infrastructure uptime.
2 / 5
What is a golden path in platform engineering?
Golden path: the "happy path" that just works for most teams. Inspired by Spotify's "paved road" concept. Elements: Service template: cookiecutter or backstage scaffold creates a new repo with: Dockerfile, CI pipeline (GitHub Actions), Helm chart, observability (Prometheus annotations, OpenTelemetry SDK), Dependabot. Self-service deployment: developer opens a PR; CI builds, tests, pushes image, deploys to dev. No ops ticket required. Sensible defaults: pod resource limits, liveness probes, HPA, PodDisruptionBudget, network policy — all pre-configured. Teams can diverge from the golden path but must own the maintenance burden of their custom setup.
3 / 5
What is Backstage and what does it provide to platform teams?
Backstage (Spotify, open-sourced 2020, CNCF): three main features: Software Catalog: all services, libraries, APIs, data pipelines in one searchable registry. Each entity has: owner, dependencies, docs link, API spec, deployment status. Solves "what services do we have and who owns them?". Software Templates (Scaffolder): self-service new service creation. Developer fills a form, Backstage creates the GitHub repo from the golden path template, registers in catalog. TechDocs: docs-as-code (Markdown in repo) rendered in Backstage. Plugins: 200+ community plugins — PagerDuty, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Grafana, SonarQube. Platform team configures Backstage; product teams use it as their engineering portal.
4 / 5
What does developer self-service mean in platform engineering?
Developer self-service: the goal of platform engineering. Measured by: time to first deployment for a new service (target: <1 day), unblocked work (no ops tickets required for standard operations), cognitive load (developer doesn't need to know Kubernetes to deploy). Self-service capabilities: Environments: create preview/staging environment from a PR — automatic teardown on merge. Databases: provision a dev PostgreSQL instance in minutes via platform UI. Secrets: request secrets from Vault through automated workflow, injected at runtime. Feature flags: enable/disable via platform UI without deployment. Observability: dashboards auto-created when a new service is registered in the catalog. Team topologies: Platform team = "Enabling team" (reduces cognitive load for Stream-aligned teams).
5 / 5
How do platform engineering teams measure success?
Platform engineering success metrics: DORA metrics: platform should improve all four — faster deploys (tooling), lower lead time (self-service), faster MTTR (better observability), lower change failure rate (automated testing/rollback). Developer NPS: would you recommend the platform to a colleague? Treat developers as customers. Time to first production deploy: new hire / new service should reach production within 1 day using golden path. Adoption rate: what % of teams use the golden path vs custom setups? Support ticket volume: platform-related tickets should decrease as self-service improves. Toil reduction: hours engineers spend on repetitive platform tasks. Platform team anti-pattern: measuring infra uptime (ops mindset) instead of developer productivity (platform mindset).
What does the "Platform Engineering Practice" vocabulary exercise cover?
This exercise tests real IT vocabulary related to platform engineering practice through 5 multiple-choice questions, each built from realistic workplace sentences rather than abstract definitions.
Is this vocabulary exercise free to use?
Yes. Every exercise on CoderSlingo, including this one, is completely free — no account, sign-up, or payment required.
How many questions does this exercise have?
This exercise has 5 questions. Each one shows a real-world sentence or scenario with multiple-choice options and an explanation once you answer.
What happens after I answer a question?
You'll see immediate feedback showing whether your answer was correct, along with a short explanation of why — then a button to move to the next question, and a full results screen at the end.
Can I retry the exercise if I get questions wrong?
Yes. Once you reach the results screen, click "Try again" to reset your answers and go through the exercise from the start as many times as you like.
Do I need to create an account to take this exercise?
No account is needed. Your answers are scored in your browser during the session — nothing is saved to a server, so you can jump straight in.
Is my progress saved if I leave the page?
No — progress within an exercise resets if you navigate away or reload. Each exercise is short enough to complete in a few minutes in one sitting.
Are these vocabulary exercises connected to other topics?
Yes — browse the full vocabulary exercises hub to find related modules covering adjacent IT topics and roles.
How is this different from reading a glossary or blog article?
Exercises like this one are active recall drills — you have to choose the correct term or phrasing yourself, which builds retention faster than passively reading a definition.
Where can I find more vocabulary exercises?
Browse the full Vocabulary exercises hub for hundreds of modules covering Agile, DevOps, security, databases, architecture, and more — organised by IT role and skill.