Platform as a Product

The Platform as a Product (PaaP) Initiative advances Product Thinking in platform engineering by treating internal platforms as products and platform users as customers, through research, content, and community discussions.

About

The Platform as a Product (PaaP) Initiative is dedicated to advancing Product Thinking in platform engineering. Our mission is to help platform teams treat their internal platforms as products and their users as customers, ensuring platforms deliver real value and meet user needs.

We achieve this by:

  • Hosting talks and discussions on product management and product thinking in the platform engineering space
  • Writing and sharing content (such as blogs and guides)
  • Conducting research through interviews and surveys

The initiative is led by members of the Cloud Native Platform Engineering Community Group and is open to anyone involved in building platforms — not just product managers. We welcome platform engineers, leaders, consumers, and anyone interested in improving platform outcomes through product management practices.

Deliverables:

  • Talks and discussions
  • Content
  • Supporting CNCF Initiatives

Contributing

Get involved: Join our CNCF Slack in the #platform-engineering channel. The Platform as a Product initiative is part of the general Cloud Native Platform Engineering Community Group, which holds meetings every two weeks that are open to all. See the schedule here.

Content

Platform as a Product Research

Our research combines qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys to understand how organizations build platforms, prioritize user needs, and apply product management practices. Insights are shared openly to help the community advance.

The Raw data from the research is available on GitHub

The outcome of the research so far was presented on the Platform Engineering Day Europe 2025 in London. You can find the recording here.

Learn more about the Platform as a Product Research here or in our blog posts.