Is Platform Engineering Only For The 1%?
Platform Engineering, Tuesday, July 29th, 2025
The phrase 'Platform Engineering' gets thrown around a lot these days - usually alongside glowing case studies from Fortune 100 giants and tech unicorns. For these companies, spinning up a dedicated platform team, building golden paths, and managing an internal developer portal (IDP) is just another day at the digital factory.
However, for many small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) - and frankly, even some enterprises that are still shaking off legacy IT cobwebs - platform engineering feels more like an exclusive club they can't afford to join.
So I'll just ask the question outright: Is platform engineering only for the 1%?
It's not an idle question. With Gartner predicting the platform engineering market will top $40 billion by 2032, it's clear the hype train is moving at full speed. But like any gold rush, the question is: Who's being left behind?