Yes, we spent money on those two platform engineers. But their work saved us four thousand person-days per year. That’s the argument for spending money on infrastructure instead of hiring more product developers. Instead of focusing on how much it costs to build a platform team, focus on the return those platform engineers can deliver. But also realize that these investments take time to pay off. Not only do you have to build the team, and have them build the infrastructure; the other teams need to adopt it. This cycle takes time, but it pays back in spades over a multiyear investment. It
...more
