> Platform teams are engineering-led rather than product-led. There is almost never a product manager handing you a roadmap, no revenue line to follow, and no market to lose.
It's precisely because of this framing and mentality that platform teams don't actually serve people well and are usually highly dysfunctional towers of people inventing work.
The fix for having no market is to act like the teams you serve could leave. This whole article lists signals, and none of them is that. Being captive does not mean the users or internal teams don't have other options and don't notice. Being product-led means caring about your users. A platform teams should be product-led, not engineering-led in that very narrow meaning. Otherwise you invent work as this article so wonderfully exposes.
> Being product-led means caring about your users
Show me a platform team with a full product setup and I'll show you a platform team with over capacity.
Not to mention the average level of PMs will take a team like this down if you can even find one who can understand the type of work that the team is doing.
dabedee · · focus · HN ↗
It's precisely because of this framing and mentality that platform teams don't actually serve people well and are usually highly dysfunctional towers of people inventing work.
The fix for having no market is to act like the teams you serve could leave. This whole article lists signals, and none of them is that. Being captive does not mean the users or internal teams don't have other options and don't notice. Being product-led means caring about your users. A platform teams should be product-led, not engineering-led in that very narrow meaning. Otherwise you invent work as this article so wonderfully exposes.
alper · · focus · HN ↗
Show me a platform team with a full product setup and I'll show you a platform team with over capacity.
Not to mention the average level of PMs will take a team like this down if you can even find one who can understand the type of work that the team is doing.