Puppet State of DevOps 2024: Platform Engineering Transforms Software Delivery

Platform Engineering: The Engine Behind the State of DevOps 2024

The 2024 report makes a compelling case that platform engineering has become the natural evolution of DevOps maturity. Drawing on the maturity model established in the 2018 State of DevOps Report — which identified five stages from “Normalize the Technology Value Stream” to “Provide Self-Service Capabilities” — the latest findings show that organizations reaching advanced maturity stages inevitably need dedicated platform engineering teams to sustain and scale their DevOps capabilities.

The maturity data tells a clear story of an established discipline. A remarkable 78% of organizations have had a platform team for three or more years, with 43% in the 3-5 year range, 25% at 6-9 years, and 10% exceeding a decade of platform engineering practice. Only 1% of respondents report having had their platform team for less than a year, indicating that the era of initial adoption is behind us and organizations are now focused on optimization and scaling. Gartner expects approximately 80% of organizations to have a dedicated platform engineering team by 2026, further validating this trajectory.

The organizational positioning of platform teams varies significantly across enterprises. The most common arrangement at 58% is oversight as part of the broader infrastructure or DevOps team, while 40% report that their platform team has direct leadership representation. Platform teams reside in diverse organizational homes: 23% as a separate team under engineering, 22% within operations, 21% within broader engineering teams, 14% within product teams, and 13% as a separate team under operations. This distribution reflects the cross-cutting nature of platform engineering, which must serve multiple stakeholders across development, operations, and security functions.

Investment commitment provides another strong signal of platform engineering’s strategic importance. Fully 65% of respondents say their platform team is important and receiving continued investment, while only 5% describe it as a temporary capability with no plans for continued investment. The remaining respondents are in beta or experimental phases, suggesting that the business case for platform engineering has been proven in the majority of organizations. For a broader view of how technology teams are evolving, see our analysis of the DORA Accelerate State of DevOps report.

How Platform Engineering Boosts Developer Productivity

The report identifies developer productivity as the top benefit of platform engineering, cited by 50% of respondents. This finding aligns with the broader industry recognition that developer experience (DevEx) directly impacts business outcomes — when developers spend less time wrestling with infrastructure and tooling complexity, they produce higher quality software faster.

The full spectrum of reported benefits paints a picture of comprehensive value creation. Beyond increased productivity, respondents cite better quality of software (40%), reduced lead time for deployment (36%), more stable applications (36%), reduced errors (31%), cost savings (31%), reduced time for product development (31%), and reduced risk of security breaches (31%). Notably, reduced cognitive load — a metric that has gained significant attention in the developer experience community — is cited by 27% of respondents, reflecting platform engineering’s ability to abstract complexity away from developers.

Platform engineering supports what the report calls “the rise of developers” — the transformation of the developer role from narrowly scoped coding tasks to broader “builder” responsibilities. As Gartner’s concept of the “citizen developer” gains traction, platform teams provide the standardized tooling environments that enable developers to leverage low-code and no-code capabilities alongside traditional development, without becoming tool experts. The platform serves as a barrier against the chaos of tools, tasks, and information, liberating developers to focus on writing great code.

Primary use cases that platform teams help solve reinforce this productivity narrative: increase productivity (58%), automate and standardize processes (51%), increase speed of product delivery (50%), improve security and compliance (49%), support infrastructure (48%), and build and maintain workflows (47%). The fact that automation and standardization rank so highly confirms that platform engineering’s value proposition centers on eliminating repetitive, manual work through well-designed self-service capabilities.

The Critical Role of Product Managers in Platform Team Success

One of the most actionable findings in the state of DevOps 2024 report is the demonstrated importance of product managers on platform teams. A majority 52% of respondents describe the product manager role as crucial to platform team success, with an additional 21% considering it important though not critical. Only 9% view the product manager as unnecessary, a finding that should prompt organizations without platform product managers to reconsider their team structure.

The top skills identified for platform product managers reflect the strategic and bridging nature of the role. Strategic thinking ranks first, followed by the ability to convert strategy into plans and objectives, collaboration skills for cross-team coordination, understanding of product and task prioritization, and experience with qualitative data analysis. These skills position the product manager as the critical link between business objectives and platform capabilities — translating customer needs into actionable engineering tasks and ensuring that platform investments align with organizational priorities.

Product managers add value to platform teams in three primary ways. First, they bridge communication gaps between platform engineers and the application development teams they serve, ensuring that platform capabilities meet actual developer needs rather than engineering assumptions. Second, they make smart decisions about prioritization, helping teams focus on the highest-impact improvements rather than pursuing technical perfection in areas that deliver limited value. Third, they maintain alignment with the “big picture,” understanding how platform engineering decisions impact business outcomes and ensuring that technical investments serve strategic goals.

The skills required for platform engineers themselves are equally revealing. System integration knowledge tops the list at 88% combined importance (48% extremely + 40% very important), followed by process automation ability at 85%, CI/CD methodology familiarity at 82%, end-to-end performance testing at 80%, performance monitoring knowledge at 80%, and agility enablement at 77%. This skill profile describes professionals who combine deep technical expertise with systems thinking and an orientation toward operational excellence. Organizations looking to strengthen their DevSecOps practices will find that these same skills are foundational.

Security as the Defining Trend of the State of DevOps 2024

The report identifies security as the biggest surprise and defining trend of the 2024 survey. Platform engineering teams have become the primary vehicle for embedding security into the software delivery pipeline, with approximately 70% of respondents reporting that security was built into their platforms from the start. Only 3% lack platform-integrated security standards, and 43% of platforms have dedicated security and compliance teams working within the platform engineering function.

The data on platform engineering’s security impact is striking. When asked about benefits for the project delivery pipeline, built-in security and compliance ranks first at 60%, ahead of infrastructure operations (58%), production monitoring (54%), and deployment (53%). This means security has moved from being a separate concern handled after development to being the top value proposition of platform engineering — a fundamental shift in how organizations approach application security.

Proactive security practices have become standard within platform engineering. Over half of respondents (51%) enforce software and tool versions through their platforms, 46% implement organizational security benchmarks, and 42% continuously scan for vulnerabilities. These practices reflect a shift from reactive security — responding to incidents after they occur — to proactive security architecture that prevents vulnerabilities from entering the delivery pipeline.

The business impact of platform-driven security is measurable and significant. Respondents report that 83% agree platform engineering has helped their company become more compliant, 78% say better processes enable faster vulnerability remediation, 77% report improved infrastructure security posture, and 76% are able to hit security and compliance KPIs. The connection to business outcomes is equally clear: 59% cite lowered risk through compliant deployments, 50% report increased regulatory compliance leading to greater business growth, and 48% note reduced time for developers learning security baselines.

The Growth and Evolution of Self-Service Platforms

A significant structural change documented in the state of DevOps 2024 report is the proliferation of specialized self-service platforms within organizations. In 2023, the most commonly reported number of platforms was six (19% of respondents). By 2024, that figure shrank to 3%, replaced by a distribution where organizations typically operate more platforms covering more specialized functions.

The 2024 distribution shows 23% of organizations operating three platforms, with meaningful percentages operating seven (14%), five (12%), four (12%), ten (approximately 9%), nine (8%), and eight (7%) platforms. Organizations with only one or two platforms dropped significantly, suggesting that the era of the single monolithic internal platform is giving way to a federated model where specialized platforms serve different organizational functions.

This trend reflects a maturation in how organizations think about platform engineering. Rather than centralizing all developer-facing capabilities into a single platform, organizations are creating specialized platforms that allow teams to pick and choose the tools and services appropriate to their specific needs. Specialized platforms allow individual teams to focus on excellence in their domain rather than attempting to build an over-centralized solution that compromises on every capability.

However, the report sounds a note of caution about the expanding scope of platform engineering. When asked what should fall within the platform team’s scope, respondents identify a wide range of functions including services enabling application development (67%), infrastructure provisioning and management (66%), workflow automation (66%), access control (63%), deployment pipeline management (61%), developer environment provisioning (59%), and application architecture involvement (58%). Managing costs and resources fell to the bottom at 47% — a finding the report describes as concerning, since uncontrolled resource consumption can undermine the business case for platform investment.

Automation: Unlocking the Full Potential of DevOps Through Platforms

The state of DevOps 2024 report reinforces that standardized automation remains the core mechanism through which platform engineering delivers value. The automation benefits documented in the report connect directly to the three driving themes of DevOps success identified by the respondents: efficiency, speed, and security.

Automation and standardization of processes ranks as the second most important use case for platform teams at 51%, just behind increased productivity (58%). This ranking reflects the understanding that automation is not an end in itself but rather the means through which productivity gains, delivery acceleration, and security improvements are achieved. By providing self-service tooling that automates infrastructure provisioning, deployment pipelines, security scanning, and compliance checks, platform teams eliminate the manual toil that slows development and introduces errors.

The report draws an explicit connection between automation maturity and the need for platform engineering. Organizations at Stage 4 (“Automate Infrastructure Delivery”) and Stage 5 (“Provide Self-Service Capabilities”) of the DevOps maturity model identified in 2018 require dedicated platform teams to build and maintain the sophisticated automation systems that these stages demand. Without platform engineering, organizations risk automation sprawl — multiple teams building redundant automation solutions that increase rather than decrease complexity. For a complementary perspective on how automation intersects with cloud adoption frameworks, see our analysis of enterprise-scale automation strategies.

An interesting finding regarding technology adoption is the position of Kubernetes in the platform engineering landscape. Only 22% of respondents indicate that Kubernetes is used in production, while 46% say they have no intention to use it. This suggests that while Kubernetes receives significant attention in the technology press, the majority of platform engineering implementations are built on other infrastructure foundations — a finding that challenges assumptions about the universality of container orchestration in modern platform engineering.

Challenges and Gaps in Platform Engineering Adoption

Despite the overwhelmingly positive trajectory, the report identifies four persistent challenges that organizations must address to maximize the value of their platform engineering investments. Understanding these challenges is as important as understanding the benefits, since they represent the primary failure modes for platform initiatives.

Complexity remains the most pervasive challenge. The wide range of tools in the modern technology ecosystem, economic pressures that constrain investment, and rapid shifts in licensing models for previously free or open source tools create a complexity landscape that platform teams must navigate carefully. Tool duplication — where different teams adopt different solutions for similar functions — leads to technical debt that compounds over time. The report warns that complexity management must be an explicit priority for platform teams, not just an implicit assumption.

Developer buy-in is the second major challenge. While senior management often champions platform investment (65% report continued investment commitment), not all developers embrace the platforms they are expected to use. The report recommends starting small, focusing on delivering impact with minimal disruption, identifying problematic processes that slow down teams, and using receptive teams as “internal champions” to encourage wider adoption. Having a dedicated platform evangelist who can demonstrate value specifically to developers is identified as a key success factor.

Resource constraints affect 34% of organizations and create a tension between platform team ambitions and organizational capacity. Platform teams must demonstrate how time savings translate into cost savings to justify continued and expanded investment. This challenge is exacerbated by the expanding scope of platform responsibilities — as platforms absorb security, compliance, cost management, and developer experience functions, the resource requirements grow proportionally.

Communication gaps between platform teams and their users represent the final major challenge. The top-cited gap needing resolution is “greater understanding of the needs of internal users” at 41%, followed by proper resource allocation (36%), workflow adaptation issues (34%), and the need for better feedback loops with application teams (34%). These findings reinforce the report’s emphasis on the product manager role as a solution to communication challenges — product managers bridge the gap between platform capabilities and user needs, ensuring that platform investments are guided by actual demand rather than engineering assumptions.

State of DevOps 2024 Strategic Recommendations for Organizations

Based on the comprehensive survey data, the report offers five strategic recommendations that should inform how organizations invest in and structure their platform engineering capabilities for maximum impact.

First, successful platform teams should be part of an organization’s innovation strategy. Platform engineering is not a cost center — it is an enabler of innovation that directly impacts the speed, quality, and security of software delivery. Organizations should provide sufficient resources and funding to match the strategic importance of the function, treating platform investment as a competitive capability rather than an overhead expense.

Second, platform teams’ focus on security is timely and should be encouraged. The convergence of platform engineering and security creates an opportunity to build compliance and security into the foundation of software delivery rather than bolting it on afterward. Managing security and compliance through platforms ensures well-rounded, resilient infrastructure that meets regulatory requirements while maintaining development velocity.

Third, product managers are a proven success factor for platform teams. With 52% of respondents describing the role as crucial, organizations that lack product management representation on their platform teams are missing a critical capability for translating business needs into platform priorities and ensuring that engineering investments deliver measurable business value.

Fourth, consider establishing a platform team evangelist role. While leadership buy-in is largely achieved (65% report continued investment), developer adoption remains a challenge. A dedicated evangelist who can demonstrate the platform’s value specifically to developers — through concrete examples, metrics, and success stories — can accelerate adoption and maximize the return on platform investment.

Fifth, and most fundamentally, the difference between platform success and failure relies on understanding the needs of platform users. The most common gap cited by respondents (41%) is insufficient understanding of internal user needs. Platform teams that treat their developers as customers — investing in user research, feedback loops, and continuous improvement based on actual usage data — will consistently outperform those that build platforms based on engineering assumptions alone. For additional insights on building developer-centric practices, explore our analysis of DevSecOps transformation strategies.

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