By Platform engineering teams at large organizations consistently underestimate the non-technical barriers to success. Tooling is broadly available and well understood. What breaks platform initiatives is poor communication, misaligned internal relationships, and teams operating inside echo chambers with no external reference points to validate their decisions.
In this interview on TFiR, Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager at Akamai Cloud, covers the real challenges facing platform teams at scale and walks through practical guidance for organizations beginning their platform engineering journey.
Guest: Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager at Akamai Cloud
Show: TFiR
Here is what every platform engineer and engineering manager needs to know.
Technical Deep Dive
Q: What is the hardest challenge in platform engineering at large organizations?
Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager at Akamai Cloud, says the hardest challenge is not technical. Across organizations of any size, the real difficulty is communication and building relationships with internal teams. Technology and tooling are well understood and increasingly accelerated by AI, but the interpersonal work of understanding what teams need and helping them move faster is where platform initiatives actually succeed or fail.
“The problem is the interpersonal pieces. Building relationships with all the internal teams, understanding their needs. That’s actually the harder piece of all of this.” — Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager, Akamai Cloud
Q: Does the communication challenge get harder as organization size increases?
McGalliard acknowledges that scale increases the volume of people involved, but frames the nature of the challenge as consistent regardless of organization size. Larger organizations simply have more people to work with, which amplifies the same interpersonal dynamics rather than introducing fundamentally different problems.
“We have just plenty of people.” — Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager, Akamai Cloud
Q: What is the biggest risk for platform teams working inside a single company?
McGalliard identifies the echo chamber as one of the most significant risks for platform teams. When engineers and managers only engage with internal perspectives, they lose the external reference points needed to validate decisions and challenge assumptions. Stepping outside that environment is what allows teams to confirm they are making sound choices and to discover approaches they had not considered.
“We all live in a bubble at work. I step out, go to these community calls, and hear how a bank in Scotland is doing their stuff. It encourages me to know that I’m making sane decisions, but it also gets me to think about problems differently.” — Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager, Akamai Cloud
Q: What is McGalliard’s top advice for teams starting their platform engineering journey?
McGalliard’s primary recommendation is to get involved in community immediately. He points specifically to the CNCF Platform Engineering Technical Community Group as a resource where practitioners can connect with peers across industries and organizations. Attending conferences and community calls puts teams in contact with practitioners who have already navigated the same problems and can share what worked.
“Get involved in community. There are some brilliant people. Learn from people who’ve gone down this path and then start implementing.” — Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager, Akamai Cloud
Q: What does the CNCF Platform Engineering community group offer practitioners?
McGalliard participates in the CNCF Platform Engineering Technical Community Group and describes it as a place where practitioners from diverse organizations, including enterprises across different sectors and geographies, share how they are solving platform problems. The group provides both validation that a team’s direction is sound and exposure to different problem-solving approaches that would not surface inside a single organization.
“I attend the CNCF platform technical community group for platform engineering. The biggest benefit is being in a position where I get outside of the echo chamber that I live in inside of Akamai.” — Corey McGalliard, Engineering Manager, Akamai Cloud
Resources & Documentation
- Akamai Cloud, cloud computing and platform infrastructure services
- CNCF Platform Engineering Technical Community Group, technical community group for platform engineering practitioners within the Cloud Native Computing Foundation
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👇 Click to Read Full Raw Transcript
Swapnil Bhartiya: When it comes to platform engineering and companies size of a combined, what is the hardest challenge?
Corey McGalliard: I think it’s the same in any organization and it’s communication and it’s more interpersonal than it is technical. Technical tools. Everybody is in the industry kind of understands this, that you have the technology available to us, right? With AI, it’s growing even faster. The problem is the interpersonal pieces, right? Like so building their relationships with all the internal teams, understanding their needs. Right? And ultimately that’s what technology does. It helps us like care for a neighbor. Well, and that’s why I’m excited about what I get to do because I get to work with this whole group of people and we get to think about what they’re building and help them do that faster and we’re able to care for them all. And that’s actually the harder piece of all of this is working with
Swapnil Bhartiya: yeah, people is the hardest no matter what. So the only difference is that the size of more people doing training.
Corey McGalliard: We have just plenty of people
Swapnil Bhartiya: versus smaller. If there is an organization, teams are starting their platform journey, platform engineering journey. What is your advice to them?
Corey McGalliard: Get involved in community, right? So I, I attend the CNCF has a platform, a technical community group for platform engineering. I’m involved in this. There are like some brilliant people. And honestly the, the biggest benefit of coming to conferences like this and then being involved in the community group is being in a position to where I get outside of the echo chamber that I live in inside of Akamai. We all experience this. We all like live in a bubble at work, right? And then I step out and I go to these community calls and I hear how a bank in Scotland is doing their stuff right here. How like we’re all working together, driving the same direction, right? And it encourages me to know that I’m making sane decisions, but it also gets me to think about problems differently and start there and then learn from people who’ve gone down this path and then start implementing games.
