Engineer Explains: What junior/senior developers and CTOs need to know about internal developer platforms

We've asked experienced engineers to share how they would explain some tech terminology at three levels of experience - from junior developer to CTO.

Enabling developers to collaborate better, ship faster, work more independently, and reduce cognitive load, internal developer platforms (IDP) have seen a meteoric rise in popularity in the last year or so.
A staggering 85% of developers said they will use a developer platform in 2024.

That’s why we have asked Michael Coté of VMWare to explain what is an internal developer platform at three levels of experience – to a junior developer, a senior developer, and a CTO.

An IDP, Coté explains, is a set of tools and processes that make software development easier and faster for engineers by taking care of the underlying infrastructure. But simplified – it’s thinking about your infrastructure as a product.

While the internal developer platform is a developer tool and a tech platform, at a more senior level, the real question is how to drive adoption and communicate to developers the value the platform provides.

This video is a part of ShiftMag’s new video series, Engineer Explains.

We’ve asked experienced engineers to share how they would explain some basic and some less basic tech terminology to different job tech job titles or at three levels of experience – from junior developer to CTO.

More:
How would you explain APIs or software architecture at three levels of experience?