6 min read

The Lure of Platform Software Engineering over Application Development

In a world where Application Development is simpler, I go through Platform Engineering's endless potential. Contemplating platforms' complicated beauty, complexity's appeal, and the satisfaction of addressing interrelated challenges that create technological ecosystems of the future.
The Lure of Platform Software Engineering over Application Development
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
Steve Jobs

I've been thinking lately about why I'm drawn to platform engineering rather than application development for my company. It might sound odd, but there's something about the complexity that appeals to me – though I'm not entirely sure I can articulate it properly.

Building platforms feels different. You're creating the foundation that others will use to build applications, which means you're constantly grappling with interconnected problems. Take something like designing an API gateway – you're not just solving one specific issue, you're anticipating dozens of use cases you haven't even thought of yet. That uncertainty, the need to think several steps ahead? I find that genuinely engaging, even when it's frustrating.

Application development, by contrast, often feels too focused for my liking. Don't get me wrong – there's real skill in crafting a brilliant user interface or optimising a specific workflow. But it doesn't seem to scratch the same itch. Perhaps I'm just wired differently.

What's interesting (and slightly embarrassing to admit) is that this pattern appears elsewhere in my life too. I tend to gravitate towards films with multiple storylines rather than straightforward narratives. My music collection is heavy on jazz and post-rock – genres that resist simple structures. Even in friendships, I'm drawn to people who see connections between seemingly unrelated things. Maybe there's something in that, or maybe I'm reading too much into coincidence.

I'm starting to think this isn't just a professional preference but something more fundamental about how I approach problems. Whether that's a strength or a limitation, I'm not entirely certain. But it does suggest that leaning into platform work might be the right direction for the company – assuming I can channel this tendency productively rather than getting lost in over-engineering everything.

It's not always the easier path, admittedly. Platform engineering can be thankless work, and there's always the temptation to add unnecessary complexity. Still, it feels like where I naturally belong, for better or worse.

This is my current thought:

I suppose my views will shift as I gain more experience – that seems inevitable.

When I think about why platform engineering appeals to me, it probably comes down to how I approach problems from the ground up. There's something about complex, interconnected systems that just clicks with me. You know when you watch a murmuration of starlings? That flowing, unpredictable beauty that somehow makes perfect sense – I reckon that's what draws me to building cohesive solutions, though I'm probably overselling the poetry of it.

This attraction to complexity might reflect something deeper about how I think and what I value. I get a real buzz from spotting connections others miss, learning how things work, and creating something that impacts multiple areas at once. Platform work seems better suited to that than building individual applications, at least in my experience.

Part of it reminds me of watching documentaries about ant colonies – how thousands of individual decisions create something remarkably intelligent. I'd love to build tech ecosystems that work a bit like that, though I'm probably being overly ambitious.

For me, platform engineering feels like a natural expression of who I am rather than just a career choice. Whether that's actually true or just how I like to see myself, I'm not entirely sure.

Don't get me wrong – applications have their place. But platform development offers architectural puzzles, broader implications, and the chance to shape how technology evolves. If you're someone who enjoys complexity and thinking long-term (which might be code for "enjoys overcomplicating things"), it's hard to resist.

What is platform engineering, really? It's building those foundational layers that support everything else. Different scope, different headaches. Instead of solving one specific problem, you're creating stable frameworks that others can build upon and extend.

The characteristics that make platforms compelling are probably what hooked me initially. Extensibility is brilliant – watching third-party developers take your platform in directions you never imagined. Though admittedly, that can be terrifying when they break things in creative ways.

Scalability matters too, especially when user demands shift overnight. I've seen platforms buckle under unexpected growth, and it's not pretty. The ability to handle increasing workloads without falling over seems rather essential.

Then there's interoperability – getting different applications and services to play nicely together. When it works, you get this lovely ecosystem where everything shares data and resources. When it doesn't... well, let's just say I've spent many late nights debugging integration issues.

Multitenancy is another puzzle I enjoy, though it can be a nightmare to implement properly. Serving multiple clients simultaneously whilst keeping their data separate and performance consistent? It's the sort of challenge that keeps you awake at night, sometimes literally.

The day-to-day work involves quite a bit of API design, which is part art, part science. Getting the interface right so other developers don't curse your name is trickier than it sounds. Then there's infrastructure management – databases, servers, networking – the unglamorous stuff that actually keeps everything running. And security? That's the thing that makes you paranoid about every single decision.

I suppose it's this mix of technical challenges and broad impact that keeps me interested. Though I should probably admit that sometimes I wonder if I just enjoy making things more complicated than they need to be.

The Architecture Puzzle

The design challenges in platform work are what initially drew me in, though they can be overwhelming. You're constantly wrestling with questions like: how do we make this scalable enough for a thousand users, or ten thousand? Multi-tenancy sounds straightforward until you're trying to keep one client's data completely separate from another's whilst still sharing resources efficiently. I've spent entire afternoons just thinking through data locality problems – where information should live and how quickly it needs to travel.

What really keeps me on my toes is thinking about interoperability. It's not just making sure your own components talk to each other properly – you've got to anticipate how third-party developers might want to integrate. Sometimes they'll use your platform in ways you never imagined, which can be brilliant or terrifying depending on your perspective.

The Ripple Effect

There's something quite satisfying about knowing your work enables other people's projects. When you build a solid platform, you're essentially creating the foundation for dozens, maybe hundreds of other applications. Though I should probably admit this can also feel like a lot of pressure – if you mess up the foundation, everyone building on top suffers.

The community aspect is interesting too, particularly with open platforms. You'll get developers contributing patches, reporting bugs, and sometimes completely rethinking how something should work. It's rewarding when it goes well, though managing a community can be like herding cats at times.

Jack of All Trades

Platform engineering forces you to become reasonably competent in quite a few areas. One day you're designing APIs, the next you're optimising database queries, then suddenly you're deep in networking protocols. It keeps things interesting, though it can feel like you're always playing catch-up with new technologies.

The innovation side is a double-edged sword. Yes, you often get to work with cutting-edge tech and might even contribute to standards or open-source projects. But staying ahead of the curve is exhausting – there's always something new to learn, and sometimes you wonder if you're adopting technology because it's genuinely better or just because it's fashionable.

Playing the Long Game

Platforms tend to stick around longer than individual applications, which appeals to me. There's something to be said for working on projects that might still be running in five or ten years' time. You get to influence strategic decisions and watch your work evolve gradually rather than being scrapped for the next big thing.

That said, the long lifecycle can also mean you're stuck with early architectural decisions for ages. I've worked on platforms where we made choices in year one that we were still regretting in year three.

Freedom and Responsibility

The autonomy is probably one of the best parts of platform work. You often get more say in technology choices and architectural approaches than you might in application development. There's a real sense of ownership when you're responsible for an entire service from conception through deployment.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility, as they say. When you own something end-to-end, there's nowhere to hide when things go wrong.

What This All Means

Platform development is essentially about building the foundation that other software sits on. Rather than creating something users interact with directly, you're creating something that enables other developers to build user-facing applications more easily.

The key characteristics seem to be extensibility (letting others build on what you've made), scalability (handling growth without falling over), interoperability (playing nicely with other systems), and multi-tenancy (serving multiple clients without them interfering with each other). Though in practice, achieving all of these simultaneously is trickier than it sounds.

Platform work requires a different skill set from application development – more emphasis on APIs, infrastructure, and security considerations. It's broader but perhaps less immediately visible to end users.

The main differences I've noticed are scope (platforms aim to support multiple use cases vs applications targeting specific needs), audience (you're building for other developers rather than end users), and lifecycle (platforms typically last longer but evolve more gradually). Whether that makes it "better" depends entirely on what motivates you as an engineer.