When you think of IT operations, the first image that pops up is often a room full of servers humming, a handful of sysadmins in scruffy sweaters, and a wall of blinking lights that spell out “keep calm and deploy.” That classic picture of siloed ops—where build, test, and run live in separate bubbles—has been the default for decades. But as software grows faster than a spam email thread, that model starts to feel more like a traffic jam than a highway. Erin Doyle, an advocate for empathy‑driven environments, explains why the old “you build it, you run it” mantra added an extra layer of mental clutter that no one really needed.
The Cognitive Toll of “Build‑Run” Silos
At its core, the “you build it, you run it” principle sounds straightforward: developers ship code, and the same people keep it alive. Yet the reality is that the act of building and operating are fundamentally different skill sets. Developers are creative, risk‑tolerant, and comfortable with rapid iteration, whereas operators prioritize stability, observability, and fail‑fast response. When the same team is forced to juggle both roles, their attention splits, their velocity slows, and the probability of errors rises. It’s like asking a chef to also be the sous‑chef, the dishwasher, and the restaurant manager—all at once.
Erin points out that this cognitive overload isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a barrier to innovation. When engineers are constantly firefighting, their mental bandwidth for building new features shrinks. The result? A product that is technically sound but creatively stunted. The platform team concept emerged as a remedy: instead of developers building and running the same stack, a dedicated group takes ownership of the shared infrastructure, allowing developers to focus on product logic.
Empathy‑Driven Platforms: The New Frontline of Collaboration
The idea is deceptively simple: design the platform with empathy, and the rest follows. In practice, this means the platform team actively listens to the pain points of application teams, anticipates friction, and crafts solutions that feel more like a service than a constraint. It’s the difference between a bank that asks you to open a new account to use a loan and a bank that automatically creates a credit line for you once you’ve registered.
Erin calls this approach “the ultimate attack against engineering roadblocks.” By shifting the responsibility for infrastructure into a separate, product‑oriented team, companies can reduce friction, speed up delivery, and, most importantly, create an environment where psychological safety thrives. When developers see that a dedicated team is not only fixing bugs but also proactively adding features to the platform, trust grows. That trust is the bedrock of a culture where people feel safe to experiment, fail, and learn.
Building Empathy: It Starts With Listening
Empathy in tech isn’t about wearing a cardigan; it’s about systematic listening. Platform teams should embed themselves into the workflow of the teams they support. One practical technique is “shadow days,” where platform engineers spend time in a product team’s sprint, observing pain points firsthand. Another is the “pain point backlog,” a living document where developers can flag recurring problems. By treating these inputs as product requirements, platform teams elevate the user experience to the same level as the end product.
Imagine a scenario where the deployment pipeline stalls at a manual approval step. A platform engineer who has sat in a developer’s stand‑up can re‑engineer the pipeline to make that step automatic, saving hours of manual labor. The developer, in turn, feels heard and valued. That simple loop of feedback and action is what turns a fragile infrastructure into a resilient, user‑centric service.
Psychological Safety: The Hidden KPI of Platform Success
When a platform team operates with empathy, psychological safety becomes measurable. Developers start to report that they can ask questions without fear of ridicule, that bugs can be reported openly, and that suggestions are welcomed rather than dismissed. This shift has a domino effect: teams iterate faster, code quality improves, and ultimately, product launches become smoother.
Think of psychological safety like the temperature of a brewing kettle. Too hot, and the brew burns; too cold, and the flavors never fully develop. A platform team that maintains a “just right” temperature cultivates innovation, ensuring the kettle’s contents—ideas, code, and features—reach their full potential.
Adopting a Product Mindset: From Ops to Ops‑as‑a‑Service
One of the most powerful transformations platform teams can bring is the shift from “operations” to “operations as a service.” Rather than treating the stack as a raw resource, platform teams package it as a product with clear APIs, SLAs, and user guides. This shift redefines the relationship between platform and product teams: the platform becomes a selling point, not a mandatory chore.
Erin illustrates this with a real‑world example. A fintech firm once required each team to install, configure, and maintain its own Kafka cluster. After adopting a product‑oriented platform, the firm rolled out a managed Kafka service with built‑in monitoring, auto‑scaling, and disaster‑recovery. The time savings were staggering: teams went from weeks of setup to minutes of provisioning, and the platform team’s reputation skyrocketed.
Practical Steps for Your Own Platform Team
If you’re ready to move from siloed ops to a more collaborative model, start by mapping out the current friction points. Identify which tasks are duplicated or cause bottlenecks. Then, create a small, cross‑functional group that includes a developer, an operator, and a product owner. Let this group prototype a new platform feature that addresses a pain point and iterate based on real usage. Over time, as trust builds, you can expand the platform team’s scope, turning it into a fully fledged product organization.
Remember, the goal isn’t to eliminate ops entirely—after all, the servers will still need a roof—but to turn ops into a partner that developers can rely on. When platform teams embrace empathy, they not only streamline infrastructure but also lay the groundwork for a culture where innovation thrives.
Looking Forward: The Future of Platform-Driven Development
The conversation around platform teams is still evolving, but the trajectory is clear: empathy, psychological safety, and product thinking are emerging as core competencies for any organization that wants to stay competitive in a fast‑moving tech landscape. As more companies adopt this model, we’ll see a shift toward infrastructure that feels less like a burden and more like a collaborative teammate. In the end, the real win is not just faster deployments or happier developers; it’s a healthier, more resilient engineering culture that can pivot quickly when the next big opportunity arrives.
