What does a platform engineer actually do? For many people, it's a role that plays out largely behind the scenes. Yet platform engineers are often responsible for the foundation upon which organizations run. They ensure that applications are reliably available, processes run more efficiently, security is in order, and new innovations are made possible.
At Warpnet, platform engineers work daily on diverse technical challenges. In this article, platform engineers at Warpnet share some projects they are proud of. Their stories show that platform engineering is not just about technology, but above all about creating value for organizations.
From American cloud to European cloud
Lou, platform engineer at Warpnet, recently helped a client migrate from an American to a European cloud provider. The desire arose from the need for more control over data, compliance, latency, and costs. The challenge was significant: the applications were already in use, users were active, and downtime was practically not an option.
The first step was to completely map out the existing platform. Not only the Kubernetes clusters and databases, but also the network layer, certificates, secrets, configurations, deployments, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring facilities. Only when the entire landscape is clear can you migrate responsibly. Next, the new environment was built step by step in UpCloud. Not as a simple copy of the existing situation, but as a platform that is easier to manage, automate, and monitor.
Regarding the moment of migration, Lou says: “The best moment? The actual switch. DNS switched on, traffic to the new environment, dashboards open, following the logs. And then seeing that everything keeps running.”
Automating and simplifying processes
An important part of platform engineering is eliminating manual work. Our colleague Haije worked on various projects that made processes faster, simpler, and easier to manage. For example, he automated the entire application process for virtual machines, including storage and network requests. Whereas previously a request took over a week, after automation with Ansible, a new environment was ready in about ten minutes.
The redesign of the RBAC structure also brought about major improvements. By standardizing roles and permissions, the number of groups was reduced by approximately 60 percent. Onboarding new users became easier, and because the authorization structure was better standardized, it was also easier to automate.
Building scalable and secure platforms
In addition to process improvements, platform engineering also focuses on reliability, security, and innovation. For example, Haije and his team automated about 80 percent of the technical checks that were part of the security audits. This created real-time insight into the platform's compliance status and made it easier to trace changes through a comprehensive audit trail.
Complete platforms are also set up according to the Infrastructure as Code principle. With tools such as Terraform, Ansible, ArgoCD, Helm, and Kustomize, entire environments can be automatically deployed and managed, practically eliminating manual work.
The same automation philosophy is reflected in the AI platform that Haije is currently working on. By automatically scaling GPU capacity up and down based on the actual load, organizations remain in control of their costs while users always have sufficient capacity.
Protection against modern cloud threats
One of our platform engineers is currently working on further strengthening the security of a customer's cloud-native platform. This involves not only implementing tooling, but primarily creating more insight, control, and resilience within the organization. By making security controls and policy frameworks a structural part of the platform, it becomes easier to identify risks early and consistently enforce security measures. Continuous insight into the platform's security posture is established, allowing teams to respond more quickly to anomalies and demonstrate compliance with internal and external requirements.
In the field of incident response, this delivers major benefits. By making activities within the platform centrally transparent, changes and security incidents can be investigated more quickly. This allows organizations to gain control over their environment and act more effectively when an incident occurs.
Our platform engineer was not only able to help the organization implement the technology, but also make their platform structurally more secure and future-proof.
Technology that drives organizations forward
The projects of our platform engineers differ greatly in content, but they have one thing in common: they show how platform engineering helps organizations work smarter, more securely, and more efficiently. Whether it concerns a cloud migration, process automation, security, compliance, or AI, platform engineers do not just build technical solutions. They create the foundation upon which organizations can grow, innovate, and trust.
Would you find it interesting to work on challenges like these and help organizations build reliable, secure, and scalable platforms? Then check out our vacancy/vacancies for (Junior Platform Engineer.