The Platform Product Manager: The Missing Link in Platform Engineering

The biggest mistake a Platform team can make is building in a vacuum. A platform is only successful if it is adopted by developers. This is why the Platform Product Manager (PPM) role is becoming essential.

What a Platform Product Manager does

1. User Research: Interviewing developers to understand their real pain points (not just what the infra team thinks they are).
2. Prioritization: Managing the backlog based on business impact and developer needs, rather than just technical novelty.
3. Internal Marketing & Advocacy: "Selling" the platform to teams, writing documentation, and managing the onboarding experience.
4. Success Metrics: Defining and tracking KPIs like onboarding time, self-service adoption, and developer satisfaction.

Why Technical Leads can't always do it

Tech leads are great at solving hard engineering problems. But product management requires a different mindset: empathy for the user, managing stakeholders, and focusing on the "Why" and "What" rather than the "How".

The PPM in the Organization

The PPM acts as the bridge between:

• Product Teams: Understanding their roadmaps and constraints.
• Platform Engineers: Translating needs into technical requirements.
• Leadership: Demonstrating the ROI of platform investments.

A simple “first 90 days” playbook

To create momentum, a PPM can focus on a few high-signal actions:

1. Map the top 3 developer journeys (create service, deploy, observe).
2. Define the golden path for one journey and remove obvious friction (docs, templates, defaults).
3. Set a small KPI set (onboarding time, adoption rate, top support topics).
4. Run a feedback loop (office hours + monthly roadmap review with key teams).

Common pitfalls

• Building for “everyone”: start with a target persona (one org, one service type).
• Measuring outputs, not outcomes: “number of features shipped” is not adoption.
• Ignoring enablement: docs, onboarding, and comms are part of the product.

What good looks like

• most new services start via templates
• fewer tickets for repeatable tasks
• faster time to first deploy
• predictable platform roadmap tied to business priorities

Conclusion

Technical excellence is the foundation of a platform, but product management is what makes it a success. By appointing a dedicated Platform Product Manager, you ensure that your platform solves real problems, achieves high adoption, and delivers measurable value to the entire organization.