Turning Platform Engineering Into Practice: Xebia Partners with PlatformEngineering.org

If you started Platform Engineering by renaming teams or buying tools, you didn’t build a platform. You performed theater.

Platform engineering is no longer new, the hype phase is largely over. Many organizations now say they have “done” their platform engineering transformation, but it often stops at renaming teams or introducing Backstage without a good platform foundation. 
The current reality: Platform Engineering is becoming a hype-driven checkbox for C-level executives. Trying to achieve Platform Engineering by taking shortcuts and then being surprised that it doesn’t deliver the expected value. 

That is exactly why Xebia has become a Platform Engineering Certified Service Provider in partnership with PlatformEngineering.org. Together we can convince organizations that platform engineering transformations are more an organizational and behavioral change than a tooling selection or something to check off.  

But this partnership goes way further than just preaching; we have a lot of common values and ways we can lift each other up. 

Shared values around knowledge sharing 

Sharing knowledge is one of Xebia’s core values. PlatformEngineering.org does this naturally through conferences, webinars, blogs and videos. Events such as Platform Engineering Con, planned for 2026 in London and New York, are a good example of how the community comes together to share knowledge. 

We love to be on stage sharing what works, what fails, and what turns out to be harder than expected. Both Xebia and PlatformEngineering.org believe platform engineering improves through open conversation and shared language, not through closed frameworks or vendor-driven narratives. 

Where platform architecture assessments connect community and practice 

A way we see Xebia and PlatformEngineering.org strengthen each other is through platform architecture assessments.  

Xebia has years of experience running architecture assessments across organizations. That experience translates naturally into the platform engineering domain. Platform architecture assessments focus on understanding how platforms are actually designed, used, and evolved, not just how they look on diagrams. 

PlatformEngineering.org provides principles and reference thinking about what good platform engineering looks like. Xebia combines these with years of experience into our own Platform Architecture Maturity Model to evaluate the current state of platforms. 

Our Platform Engineering Vision 

Our longstanding vision on what it takes to make platforms land within organizations:

Xebia doesn't just build platform we make them land 

Platform engineering only works if platforms are actually adopted and used. Designing and building a technically sound platform is not enough. The hard part is making it land inside an organization. 

This is where Xebia’s focus sits. Making platforms land means working across technology, teams, and organizational boundaries. It means dealing with adoption, developer experience, governance, and long-term ownership. It means staying involved beyond the first delivery and taking responsibility for whether a platform actually enables teams or quietly gets bypassed.  

And don’t forget about the cross-cutting concerns. Security for example, if you don’t involve them in the process of building your platform, they can block it just before launching. The same goes for compliance and architecture. Platforms aren’t created in a vacuum by a small team, but rather the whole IT organization is involved. 

The partnership with PlatformEngineering.org strengthens this approach. Their frameworks and shared language help structure the work. Xebia’s delivery experience ensures those ideas survive in contact with reality. 

Platform engineering and AI: two sides of the same coin 

AI has added urgency to platform engineering discussions. Two perspectives matter. 

First, AI for platform engineering. Teams are using AI tools to accelerate development, automate repetitive work, and improve developer productivity. 

Second, platform engineering for AI. Many organizations want to adopt AI quickly, but their infrastructure is not ready. IBM found out in research that 77% of the executives say they need to adopt AI quickly to keep up with competitors, but 25% of executives agree their organizations' IT infrastructure can support scaling AI across their organization. Platform engineering plays a critical role in closing that gap by providing scalable, secure, and operable foundations for AI workloads. 

Platform engineering is not a name, it is behavior 

Many organizations say they are doing platform engineering because they introduced an internal developer portal or rebranded an operations team. That misses the point. 

Platform engineering is about product thinking. It is about reducing cognitive load for developers so they can focus on building software instead of managing infrastructure. Tools matter, but behavior matters more. A polished front door without a solid house behind it does not solve anything. 

This view strongly aligns with the principles promoted by PlatformEngineering.org. It also reflects what Xebia sees in practice: successful platforms are built through continuous ownership, clear user focus, and alignment with business goals. Not through one-off projects. 

Next steps for the partnership 

An important next step in the partnership is becoming an official training partner of PlatformEngineering.org. This enables the Xebia Academy to deliver platform engineering trainings created by and for the community. 

In parallel, Jelmer Jong will take on the role of Platform Engineering ambassador. He will actively contribute to the PlatformEngineering.org community by sharing experiences from the field and participating in discussions 

Xebia will also be present at platform engineering conferences, not just as attendees but ideally with Xebians on stage. Sharing lessons learned, including what did not work, is a key part of how the community grows. 

Locally, Xebia will organize a Platform Engineering Meetup in Amsterdam. The goal is to create a space for practitioners to exchange experiences, compare approaches, and discuss challenges in an open and practical setting.

Part of an early movement 

Xebia has a history of engaging early with new disciplines that are taking over the world, for example Agile or DevOps. Platform engineering is still maturing, and this partnership places Xebia among the first official service providers in Europe. 

More importantly, it embeds Xebia within the community shaping what platform engineering becomes. By connecting community-driven thinking with assessment-based reality and delivery experience, Xebia and PlatformEngineering.org help ensure platform engineering does not stay theoretical but delivers value.