As organisations embrace digital transformation, two critical fields have emerged—cloud engineering and platform engineering. While these roles often overlap, they serve distinct purposes in building and maintaining an organisation’s technology stack. Here’s a breakdown of the key differences between cloud engineering and platform engineering:
- Scope of Responsibilities
Cloud engineers focus on designing, deploying, and managing applications in the cloud. Their primary responsibility is to ensure that cloud infrastructure—whether it’s public, private, or hybrid—is optimised for performance, scalability, and security. They work with cloud service providers such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, configuring environments and managing cloud resources.
Platform engineers, on the other hand, are responsible for building and maintaining the internal platforms that development teams use to build, deploy, and manage applications. They create a unified platform that abstracts away infrastructure complexities, allowing developers to focus on writing code. This often involves working with container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring tools to streamline the software development lifecycle.
- Focus on Infrastructure vs. Developer Productivity
Cloud engineering is more infrastructure-focused. Cloud engineers ensure that the infrastructure is scalable, reliable, and secure, aligning with the organisation’s needs for data storage, processing, and networking. They are often involved in tasks like cost optimisation, disaster recovery planning, and cloud automation.
Platform engineering, by contrast, is developer-centric. The goal is to improve developer productivity by providing a streamlined environment where developers can easily deploy and manage their applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Platform engineers create tools and systems that reduce operational burdens for development teams, accelerating innovation and reducing time to market.
- Tools and Technologies
Cloud engineers typically work with cloud-specific tools like AWS CloudFormation, Azure Resource Manager, and Google Cloud Deployment Manager. They use these tools to configure, automate, and manage cloud resources.
Platform engineers, meanwhile, focus on tools that support continuous integration and deployment, such as Jenkins, Docker, and Kubernetes. They are often responsible for creating automated pipelines that enable developers to deploy code quickly and safely.
- Collaboration with Other Teams
Both cloud and platform engineers collaborate closely with development, security, and operations teams, but their focus differs. Cloud engineers work closely with operations and security teams to ensure the cloud environment is robust and compliant. Platform engineers, however, work more closely with developers, creating a seamless interface for building and deploying applications.
In summary, cloud engineers focus on optimising cloud infrastructure, while platform engineers create tools and environments that improve developer productivity. Both roles are crucial in modern organisations, and understanding the distinction can help businesses structure their teams for success.
