The Platform Engineer’s Handbook • Ajay Chankramath & Kaspar von Grünberg • GOTO 2026

This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club. #GOTOcon #GOTObookclub
http://gotopia.tech/bookclub

Check out more here:
https://gotopia.tech/episodes/451

Ajay Chankramath - Founder & CEO at Platformetrics & Co-Author of "The Platform Engineer’s Handbook" @achankramath452 
Kaspar von Grünberg - Founder & CEO at Stealth & Author of "Thinking in Platforms"

RESOURCES
Ajay
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chankramath
https://github.com/achankra
https://x.com/ajchantw
https://chankramath.com
https://platformetrics.com

Kaspar
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kvgruenberg
https://github.com/Kasparvongruenberg
https://kasparvongruenberg.com

Links
https://peh-packt.platformetrics.com
https://youtu.be/BPCcxYHLzkI
https://youtu.be/ajX56E4G5qk
https://youtu.be/gLMe85XyXhI

DESCRIPTION
Ajay Chankramath — author of The Platform Engineer’s Handbook — joins Kaspar von Grünberg to unpack why he wrote a 14-chapter, code-first practitioner's guide instead of another theory-heavy platform book. The conversation's core thesis: the reason developers don't adopt platforms isn't a technology gap, it's a product discipline gap — a failure to treat developer experience as a first-class outcome with a real feedback loop. Ajay walks through the book's arc, from Kubernetes and service-mesh foundations through self-service portals to enterprise-grade concerns like policy-as-code and FinOps, and makes a pointed case for building on 100% open-source, vendor-agnostic tooling as a hedge against geopolitical and licensing whiplash.

The most relevant thread for engineers building with AI today: citing a McKinsey finding that only 6% of AI initiatives show real productivity gains, Ajay argues that agentic AI doesn't reduce the need for platform engineering — it raises the stakes. As coding agents become genuine actors in the SDLC rather than tools, IDPs need a new layer for agent context, memory, tool registries, and guardrails, and that layer "must be built, owned, and operated by you," not bought off the shelf.
His conclusion: the differentiator in the AI era isn't which frontier model you use — it's whether your platform foundations are solid enough to make agents safe and productive at all.

TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
01:35 Why this book exists
04:17 From chip design to Platform Engineering
07:12 Platform as a product, not a tool
09:37 Inside the book: From foundations to enterprise-grade
15:17 Built for any industry — Almost
19:05 Sovereignty & going 100% vendor-agnostic
23:27 What happens when agents enter the SDLC
28:00 How to write a practical Platform Engineering book
31:07 Outro

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Ajay Chankramath • The Platform Engineer's Handbook • https://amzn.to/4eCSibM
Ajay Chankramath & Eamonn Ryan • Domain-Driven Platform Engineering • https://amzn.to/3TdiC3J
Chankramath, Cheneweth, Oliver & Alvarez • Effective Platform Engineering • https://amzn.to/3OnxN8i
Kaspar von Grünberg & Luca Galante • Thinking in Plat­forms • https://weaveintelligence.io/thinking-in-platforms-book
Gregor Hohpe • Platform Strategy • https://amzn.to/4cxfYdb

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