Platform Engineering · 01 of 6
Why platform engineering
Ticket queue versus golden path, the four jobs of a platform team, and when it is time.
From ticket queue to golden path
- Golden-path templatebest practice built in
- A short formname, owner, runtime
- Guardrails passin the pipeline
- Running servicein minutes, not weeks
01
Ticket queue or golden path
Ticket queue Golden path
New environment✕Ticket, review, manual provisioning: weeks✓Template, short form, auto-provisioned: minutes
Pipeline✕Hand-wired by each team✓Generated from the template, gates included
Security✕Back-and-forth after the build✓Guardrails pass in the pipeline
Access✕Granted by hand, no audit trail✓A role per environment, time-boxed, logged
Cost✕Seen on next month's bill✓Estimated first, tracked per team
Standards✕A wiki page few people read✓Built into every template
DevOps is the aspiration; platform engineering is the structural implementation.
Culture alone stops scaling. A platform team turns the practices every team should follow into a product teams choose to use.
02
The four jobs of a platform team
What a platform team is for, whoever staffs it.
Platform teamruns the platform as a product
Step 1 of 4
Self-sufficient developers
Environments, repositories and pipelines on request; credentials visible per project.
Is it the right time?
The questions this part raises, and their answers.
DevOps sets the goal. A platform is how many teams reach it without each rebuilding the same pipelines, environments and controls.
It also gives security and finance one place to set rules.
SourcesNGT Platform Engineering deck v1.2 (Sep 2026)NGT Platform Engineering Service Offering v1.0 (2025)NGT Service Offering v3.2 (Jul 2026)NGT Service Offering v2.0 (Mar 2025)NGT FinOps Service Offering (Mar 2025)