Coté
The Rising Cost of Child and Pet Day Care - “Another way to put this is that to retain workers, wages in stagnant-productivity sectors must rise to match those in (equally labor-skilled) high-productivity sectors. That means paying more for the same level of care, simply to keep the labor force from leaving”
Platform engineering for private cloud
Here’s a recording of my latest “how to do platform engineering in large organizations” talk. In this version of it, I go over what matters most for private cloud platforms.
Here’s the slides for the talk if you’re into that kind of thing.
This talk is based on many years of observing people run platforms, primarily Cloud Foundry based one. I don’t know if it’s the oldest, but it’s one of the longest running and used private PaaS’es (“platform”) out there. That is, it works and, if you talk with the developers and platform engineers who run, it’s well loved.
Conferences
It's about 30 days until SpringOne. If you work on enterprises apps, there's a good chance you work with Spring. At SpringOne, you can learn and catch-up on the latest in Spring, including Spring AI. Register for it and come get your brain filled up with good stuff.
And, also:
SpringOne, Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th. Explore 2025 US, Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th. Cloud Foundry Day EU, Frankfurt, October 7th, 2025. SREDay London, speaking, September 18th and 19th. Civo Navigate London, speaking, September 30th, London. AI for the Rest of Us, speaking, October 15th to 16th, London. SREDay Amsterdam, November 7th.
Logoff
Good times, great hair:
Internal Developer Platform marketing: the people, the community management
Driving Platform Adoption: Community Is Your Value
If you want developers to actually use your platform, you’ve got to give them more than APIs and automation. You need a community. In the third piece in our platform marketing series, Rita and I look at how the most successful platform teams invest in support forums, internal events, and actual human beings whose job is to make developers feel connected, heard, and empowered.
Support channels should be more than a ticketing system - they should feel like a Slack room full of friendly coworkers. Regular speaker series and internal conferences help developers see what’s possible, swap war stories, and stay excited about using the platform. Mercedes-Benz and others have found that when you treat community management like a core feature, it pays off in adoption and trust.
We also talk about platform advocates - full-time people who listen to developers, answer questions, and carry feedback upstream. These folks are your field reps, therapists, and salespeople rolled into one. Bottom line: community isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s part of the product. Treat it like infrastructure, and it’ll return the favor.
Check the full article for more.
Wastebook
The levels of confidence in having figured out the mysteries of life that the 20 something males in first class have is amazing.
“If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.” Dorothy Parker.
“Happens to be dead.” @bruces caption.
“Now, thanks to the internet, you can become a psychologist without even taking the train!” Here.
“This is a useful way to think: everything is already in motion, we just need to try to steer.” // I suspect you have to couple this with: you actually need to do less than you think to matter. On Ease.
Dateline: Glasgow - black pudding breakfast roll.
As a whole, the Manchester airport is buck-wild. Like if you threw DFW into the sky, and used duct-tape and zip-ties to connected where everything feel to earth. But Terminal 2, recently freshened up, is real nice-like.
You’ve achieved Delta 369 status; divorce fees not included.
“Were you short on deodorant this morning?” “DAAAD, stop it!” // A minor moment in the confederacy of parents.
Conferences
It's about 30 days until SpringOne. If you work on enterprises apps, there's a good chance you work with Spring. At SpringOne, you can learn and catch-up on the latest in Spring, including Spring AI. Register for it and come get your brain filled up with good stuff.
And, also:
SpringOne, Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th. Explore 2025 US, Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th. Cloud Foundry Day EU, Frankfurt, October 7th, 2025. SREDay London, speaking, September 18th and 19th. Civo Navigate London, speaking, September 30th, London. AI for the Rest of Us, speaking, October 15th to 16th, London. SREDay Amsterdam, November 7th.
Logoff
Suggested outro for the weekend. As one commenter said, “For those about to chill, we salute you.”
Using t-shirts to drive internal developer platform use
Is Swag the Secret to Platform Adoption?
Turns out, T-shirts might matter more than YAML. In this post, I dig into how internal platforms benefit from strong branding - not just logos and names, but a clear identity and ethos that developers can rally behind. When your platform has a name people actually want to say out loud, and maybe a sticker they slap on their laptop, adoption gets a little easier.
In part two of our platform marketing series, Rit and I look at how teams like JPMorgan Chase and the U.S. Air Force use branding - complete with slogans, mascots, and yes, swag - to build loyalty and turn internal platforms into movements. A good brand makes your platform memorable; an ethos makes it meaningful. Together, they give developers a reason to care - and a way to explain why they care to others.
So before you obsess over provisioning pipelines, consider whether your platform has a vibe. Is it something people identify with? Would they wear the shirt? If not, it might be time to revisit the brand.
Check out more in the article. Eventually, we’ll get a white paper (PDF) out on this that’ll have a few more tactics, tips, and mini-case studies that are not in the articles.
Cords, Cyborgs & Cold Cases: Grandpa Dancy’s Operating System for Life
In this week’s Software Defined Interviews, we talk with Chris Dancy, a friend of mine from long ago. He let me wear his Google Glass. It was amazing:
He is always interesting and recently has been applying tech to solve simple problems at the city level. There’s also a lot of “most connected man in the world” talk.
Give it a listen, or watch the video if you’re into that kind of thing.
Relative to your interests
The more senior engineers get, the more results matter - “as you become more senior, you’re increasingly graded on results. Interns are graded on effort.”
How to Measure the ROI of AI Coding Assistants - Actual suggestions for doing it, not just pondering. // Also, good follow-up to the link last episode saying that asking for metrics is good way to pop the AI bubble.
Kubernetes Complexity Realigns Platform Engineering Strategy - Turns out computer are always difficult.
French Data Under U.S. Firms Is Not Protected From U.S. Government Access -
Where Technology Executives Will Be Investing In 2026 - Looks like lots of datacenter buildout.
Code was the least interesting part of my multi-agent app, and here’s what that means to me - Less time coding means more time designing and product managing.
How Pair Programming Enhanced Development Speed, Focus, and Flow
Java licensing snafus cost millions, drive developers to open source - ”One-quarter of respondents said their organization spent between $50,000 and $100,000 resolving software non-compliance issues, while licensing issues cost 17% of surveyed organizations up to $1 million.”
Beyond London Summit 2025: Decoding Google Cloud’s Scale Narrative - Summary of stated Google cloud strategy, from Bola.
AI industry’s size obsession is killing ROI, engineer argues - Doing enterprises AI isn’t free in terms of time, money, opportunity cost, and risk. You need target things that have a pay off, an ROI. I hope that this will mean doing more, not cutting costs. That is growth, not firing people. Based on:
Why I’m Betting Against AI Agents in 2025 (Despite Building Them) - ‘Meanwhile, the winners will be teams building constrained, domain-specific tools that use AI for the hard parts while maintaining human control or strict boundaries over critical decisions. Think less “autonomous everything” and more “extremely capable assistants with clear boundaries.”’
How I use LLMs to learn new subjects - It’s good at well know facts, things that are mainstream or so niche that there is only one answer: “you should avoid asking the model for concrete details that don’t really matter, and if the model gives you details like that you shouldn’t trust them. But when the model is speaking about facts that do matter - facts that are load-bearing for many other things the model knows about - you can be relatively confident that you’re getting correct information.” // Also, nicely put: “models are not minds; instead they are role-playing a particular kind of helpful character. They prioritize consistent role-play above almost all other concerns.”
Get yourself an absurd milkshake.
Wastebook
Don’t ask things in Reddit. That’s like a kindergartener asking a second grader where babies come from.
I don’t think I have the right kind of drugs to appreciate this music.
“Regional Car Dealership Rococo.” Interior design criticism.
And: “if your tastes tend more toward a black polo neck or an unadorned steak (both fine things in themselves), you’ll never enjoy the Rococo.”
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” 1,000 fans.
The conversation about AI slop is a lot about the content other people put in your face, not about one’s own AI use.
“Made 58 waffles!” Here.
Logoff
I was in Manchester for the first time this week. Seems like a nice place. This signage at the airport is very big and very clear. I can’t find any references quickly enough, but I feel like sometime in the last 10 to 15 years, the UK got really into typefaces and making things clear, and, thus, usable. It’s worked!
I’m not in the market for a pipe, nor did I verify this, but according to this sign, could be that you can purchase smoking pipes in the Manchester Airport.
Also, downtown Manchester is full of kids. Well, college students. Just walking around, doing stuff. So much youth!
How I use LLMs to learn new subjects - It’s good at well know facts, things that are mainstream or so niche that there is only one answer: “you should avoid asking the model for concrete details that don’t really matter, and if the model gives you details like that you shouldn’t trust them. But when the model is speaking about facts that do matter - facts that are load-bearing for many other things the model knows about - you can be relatively confident that you’re getting correct information.” // Also, nicely put: “models are not minds; instead they are role-playing a particular kind of helpful character. They prioritize consistent role-play above almost all other concerns."
The more senior engineers get, the more results matter - “as you become more senior, you’re increasingly graded on results. Interns are graded on effort."
Kubernetes Complexity Realigns Platform Engineering Strategy - Turns out computer are always difficult.
Where Technology Executives Will Be Investing In 2026 - Looks like lots of datacenter buildout.