Platform engineers are the hot catch in the job market at the moment. They play an indispensable role in managing (or in some cases, designing) the platforms that support software and application development and delivery. For any business that relies on software and application delivery, platform engineers have a direct impact on the company’s operations and overall success.
Curious about what makes a good platform engineering talent to add to your team?
This blog will help you understand:
- What a platform engineer is
- The job description and responsibilities of a platform engineer
- Platform engineer salary in Hong Kong & Singapore
- Who can benefit from hiring platform engineers
- Qualification & skills requirement
What is a Platform Engineer?
A platform engineer designs, builds and maintains the underlying infrastructure and tools that support software and application development and deployment. They enable DevOps and software developers to efficiently run applications. As platform engineering is “product-oriented”, platform engineers need to deliver optimized platform performance to DevOps, security and business teams to meet organizational needs.
Platform engineering is all about creating a self-service setup where developers can just focus on what they do best: writing code, building, testing, and deploying awesome applications—all from one place. This approach frees developers from the cognitive load of managing multiple tools and infrastructures, technical debt, and endless meetings to discuss permissions and access.
Ultimately, platform engineers are the platform guardians that help optimize business performance by ensuring a reliable, secure, and scalable development and delivery process.
Because of platform engineers, developers will have the time to brainstorm, try out new ideas and focus on innovation. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Platform Engineer Job Description
Every platform engineering team’s needs are unique. Sitting between Dev and Ops, a platform engineer’s job description can vary significantly depending on the priorities of the organization. For example, their responsibilities may change depending on whether a business chooses to buy vs. build a platform or whether they set up a centralized platform team or integrate them into different product development teams.
What does a platform engineer do?
Here are some of the responsibilities of a platform engineer:
- Internal Developer Platform (IDP): platform engineers design, build and maintain internal developer platforms (IDPs)
- Infrastructure provisioning: managing infrastructure resources and automating the provisioning.
- CI/CD pipeline: build and maintain the CI/CD pipeline.
- Security and compliance: ensure DevOps security and compliance and governance standards.
- Platform health monitoring: monitor and analyse platform performance, as well as identify potential bottlenecks.
- Continuous performance optimization: troubleshoot and resolve platform issues promptly.
Platform engineers need to listen to the challenges from the Dev, Ops, and business teams, to design and maintain the best platform. They are also responsible for explaining the platform to internal teams and helping to shift mindsets. Essentially, platform engineers are the glue holding together all teams involved in application delivery.
Platform engineer salary in Hong Kong & Singapore
According to Glassdoor and Jooble, here’s the latest salary information for Platform Engineer roles in Hong Kong and Singapore in 2024, as of August 2024.
Platfrom Engineer Salary in Hong Kong
- Annual salary: HK$600k- HK$1.5M (US$77k- 192k)
- Average salary: HK$846,200 (US$108.5k) per year
- Additional cash compensation: up to HK$120k/year (US$15.4k/year)
- Average additional salary: HK46,000 (US$5,899)/ year
Platform Engineer Salary in Singapore
- Annual salary: SG$67k-SG$205k (US$50k-US$154k)
- Average salary: SG$97,344 (US$73.320) per year
- Additional cash compensation: up to SG$500 – SG$1750/month (US$376 – US$1318/month)
- Average additional salary: SG$1,125/month (US$848/month)
Who Needs to Hire Platform Engineers?
As demonstrated above, establishing a platform engineering team is a costly investment. While adapting platform engineering is the most effective way to boost application/software development and delivery efficiency undoubtedly, you will likely to reap the most benefits of having a dedicated platform engineering team if:
- Digital transformation is a high priority and business objective
- You have cross-function teams overseeing application development, ops and infrastructures
- You have a mature product and need to scale up fast
- You are familiar with DevOps culture
If your business does not have regular deployment needs or is not familiar with DevOps culture, then hiring platform engineers might not be your priority.
What are the skills needed to be a great platform engineer?
To be a great and confident platform engineer, a solid foundation of tech skills, communication abilities and curiosity for learning are crucial. A platform engineer should possess the following skills to be able to create real impact.
Technical skills
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- Proficiency in programming languages such as Java, Go, Ruby, Python, etc.
- Proficiency in scripting languages (PowerShell, Bash, Python) for automation and task execution
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): experience with tools like Terraform, CloudFormation or Pulumi to manage infrastructure needs.
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- Experience and knowledge of Docker & Kubernetes for building and deploying application
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- Solid understanding of security best practices, e.g., access control, encryption, vulnerability management, etc.
Non-tech skills
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- Product mindset: as we mentioned before, platform engineers need to be product-oriented, in order to explain and understand the needs of your Dev, Ops and business teams.
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- Solution-oriented: platform engineers who can demonstrate strong analytical and problem-solving skills, especially under time restraints.
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- Communication skills: since platform engineers need to collaborate with product, business, security and DevOps teams, excellent communication skills are required. They may need to “code-switch” and articulate technical concepts to all stakeholders.
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- Continuous learning: since platform engineering is a developing concept, there are a lot of new strategies, approaches and technologies that need to be studied and learned. A great platform engineer should be passionate about optimization and finding ways to improve efficiency,
Qualifications
There aren’t any formal requirements to become a platform engineer, as long as you are equipped with the skills mentioned above. However, many platform engineer job descriptions in Hong Kong and Singapore generally require a bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field.
FAQs:
Is platform engineer the same as cloud engineer?
No, a platform engineer focuses on building and maintaining a platform and tools. A cloud engineer specializes in designing and managing cloud infrastructure and services. But their roles can overlap.
Is a platform engineer the same as a DevOps engineer?
Although platform engineering and DevOps share some similarities, there are slight differences between a platform engineer and a DevOps engineer. A DevOps engineer primarily focuses on continuous integration, delivery and collaboration between the Devs and the Ops teams.
Do platform engineers require coding?
Yes, platform engineers need to know how to code. Additional skills that are needed include programming languages, scripting languages, Infra experience, Docker/Kubernetes, Cloud services, security best practices, etc.
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