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Platform Engineering Maturity Assessment: The Reality Check We Needed

What happened when we actually measured our platform engineering maturity—spoiler: we weren't as mature as we thought, and that was the best thing that could have happened.

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The Uncomfortable Truth About Platform Maturity

Six months ago, our VP of Engineering asked me a simple question: “On a scale of 1-10, how mature is our platform engineering practice?”

I confidently answered: “Solid 7. We’ve got internal developer platforms, automated deployments, self-service infrastructure. We’re doing well.”

He nodded, then said: “Great. Prove it.”

That conversation kicked off our first-ever formal platform maturity assessment—and it completely shattered my perception of where we actually stood. This is the story of what we learned, how wrong we were, and why getting real about platform maturity was the best thing that happened to our engineering organization.

For the comprehensive framework we used, check out the detailed Platform Engineering Maturity Assessment guide on CrashBytes.

The Starting Point: Overconfidence Meets Reality

Here’s what I thought we had:

  • ✅ Internal developer portal (Backstage-based)
  • ✅ Standardized CI/CD pipelines
  • ✅ Infrastructure as Code (Terraform everywhere)
  • ✅ Self-service cloud provisioning
  • ✅ Automated monitoring and observability

On paper, we looked great. Our platform team had built impressive capabilities. We had cool dashboards, sophisticated tooling, and a growing service catalog.

But when we started actually measuring things—talking to developers, analyzing usage patterns, collecting real data—a very different picture emerged.

Week 1: The Developer Satisfaction Bomb

The first thing we did was survey our 85 developers. We used a simple Net Promoter Score approach: “How likely are you to recommend our platform capabilities to a developer joining the company?”

Expected NPS: +40 (good)
Actual NPS: -12 (terrible)

I was stunned. We had built all this infrastructure, and developers were actively dissatisfied with it.

The open-ended feedback was even more brutal:

“The portal is nice but I still need to file tickets for 70% of what I need”

“Documentation is either outdated or missing for most services”

“I spent 3 days trying to set up a new service. It should have taken 3 hours”

“The platform team built what they thought we needed, not what we actually need”

That last comment hit especially hard because it was true. We had built the platform WE wanted to work on, not the platform developers NEEDED to use.

The Six-Dimension Reality Check

We decided to use the comprehensive six-dimensional assessment framework covering:

  1. Capability Maturity
  2. Product Maturity
  3. Organizational Maturity
  4. Technology Maturity
  5. Governance Maturity
  6. Measurement Maturity

Here’s where we actually landed in each dimension:

Capability Maturity: Level 2 (Not the 4 I thought)

What I thought: Our standardized services and self-service portal put us at Level 3

The reality:

  • Only 38% of infrastructure requests could be self-served end-to-end
  • Average time to provision a new service: 4.7 days (goal was under 1 day)
  • 62% of “automated” deployments required manual intervention
  • Zero automated rollback capabilities

We had built the infrastructure, but we hadn’t removed the toil. Developers could click buttons in a portal, but then they still had to wait for manual approvals, custom configurations, and troubleshooting help.

Product Maturity: Level 1 (Ouch)

This dimension hurt the most because it exposed our fundamental misunderstanding of what “platform as product” actually meant.

What I thought: We had a product manager for the platform, so we must be mature

The reality:

  • No systematic user research or developer journey mapping
  • Feature prioritization based on “engineering coolness” not user needs
  • Zero A/B testing or experimentation with platform features
  • No clear product metrics beyond “things we built”
  • Platform roadmap driven by technical debt, not user outcomes

Our “product manager” was actually just coordinating engineering work, not doing real product management. We didn’t understand our users, their jobs-to-be-done, or how platform capabilities impacted their productivity.

Organizational Maturity: Level 2

The adoption problem we didn’t see:

  • Only 48% of development teams actively using platform capabilities
  • Remaining teams built custom solutions because platform didn’t meet their needs
  • Platform team seen as a bottleneck, not an enabler
  • No executive visibility into platform success metrics
  • Cultural resistance to “one way of doing things”

We had assumed low adoption was a “communication problem.” The assessment revealed it was actually a product-market fit problem—we built the wrong things.

Technology Maturity: Level 3 (The one bright spot)

Our technology stack was actually pretty solid:

  • Full infrastructure as code
  • GitOps workflows
  • Service mesh for east-west traffic
  • Comprehensive observability stack

But here’s the catch: technology maturity without product maturity is just expensive technical debt. We had built sophisticated capabilities that nobody wanted to use.

Governance Maturity: Level 2

What I thought: Our policy-as-code approach put us ahead

The reality:

  • Policies existed but were bypassed 40% of the time because they slowed development
  • No automated compliance reporting
  • Security scanning in CI/CD but not blocking bad deployments
  • Manual audit processes taking 2-3 weeks per quarter

We had governance theater, not real governance integration.

Measurement Maturity: Level 1 (The most damaging gap)

This was our fatal flaw. We were measuring outputs (what we built) instead of outcomes (what we improved).

What we measured:

  • Number of services in the platform catalog
  • Infrastructure provisioning time (for successful requests)
  • Platform uptime

What we should have measured:

  • Developer time-to-first-deployment
  • Self-service success rate
  • Developer cognitive load
  • Platform-mediated deployment frequency
  • Business impact of platform capabilities

We didn’t know if the platform was actually making developers more productive. We just knew it was technically impressive.

The Turning Point: Accepting We Were Wrong

Here’s the thing about maturity assessments: they’re uncomfortable. When the data showed we were at Level 1-2 across most dimensions when I thought we were at 3-4, my first instinct was to argue with the methodology.

“The assessment doesn’t capture the complexity of our environment"
"Our developers don’t understand what good platform engineering looks like"
"We’re being judged too harshly”

But my VP of Engineering said something that changed my perspective:

“The assessment isn’t here to make you feel good. It’s here to show us the truth so we can actually improve. Would you rather be comfortable and ineffective, or uncomfortable and on a path to real impact?”

That was the turning point. We stopped defending our current state and started being genuinely curious about how to improve.

The Action Plan: 90-Day Sprint to Level 2

Based on the assessment, we identified three critical gaps to address:

Priority 1: Developer Journey Mapping

We spent two full weeks doing something we’d never done before: actually observing how developers used (or didn’t use) our platform.

The process:

  1. Shadowing developers during common tasks (new service setup, deployment, troubleshooting)
  2. Recording time spent on each step of platform interactions
  3. Identifying friction points where developers got stuck or gave up
  4. Cataloging workarounds developers created when platform didn’t meet their needs

What we discovered was humbling:

  • Average time to first successful deployment: 18 hours of developer time spread over 4 days
  • Success rate without help: 32%
  • Most common failure point: Networking and security group configuration
  • Most common workaround: “Just copy what the other team did and hope it works”

The journey maps revealed 14 specific friction points in our “self-service” experience. No wonder developers hated it.

Priority 2: Product Metrics Implementation

We completely overhauled what we measured. Here’s what we implemented:

# Developer Experience Metrics Dashboard
metrics:
  onboarding_velocity:
    - time_to_first_deployment  # Target: < 4 hours
    - time_to_second_deployment # Target: < 1 hour
    - documentation_success_rate # Target: > 80%
    
  daily_productivity:
    - platform_mediated_deployments # Target: > 85%
    - self_service_success_rate # Target: > 75%
    - manual_intervention_rate # Target: < 10%
    - time_saved_vs_manual # Target: > 60%
    
  developer_satisfaction:
    - monthly_nps_survey
    - weekly_pulse_feedback
    - support_ticket_sentiment
    
  business_impact:
    - deployment_frequency # DORA metric
    - lead_time_for_changes # DORA metric
    - mean_time_to_recovery # DORA metric
    - developer_retention_rate

The key shift: every metric now connected to either developer experience or business outcomes. We stopped measuring “platform features shipped” and started measuring “developer productivity improved.”

Priority 3: Systematic User Research

We established a regular cadence of developer engagement:

  • Weekly developer office hours where anyone could bring platform questions
  • Monthly developer council with representatives from each team
  • Quarterly user research sprints with formal interviews and usability testing
  • Continuous feedback collection through in-platform surveys

For the first time, we treated developers as customers rather than users. The language shift mattered.

90 Days Later: Real Progress, Realistic Expectations

After our focused 90-day improvement sprint, here’s where we landed:

Capability Maturity: 2 → 2.5

  • Self-service success rate: 38% → 64%
  • Average provisioning time: 4.7 days → 1.2 days
  • Manual intervention rate: 62% → 28%

Product Maturity: 1 → 2

  • Implemented systematic user research
  • Established clear product metrics
  • Developer NPS: -12 → +15
  • Feature requests now prioritized by user impact

Measurement Maturity: 1 → 2

  • Comprehensive developer experience metrics
  • Business impact tracking
  • Regular feedback collection
  • Clear connection between platform capabilities and outcomes

The most important change wasn’t in the metrics—it was in the mindset. We stopped thinking about platform engineering as “building cool infrastructure” and started thinking about it as “removing friction from developer workflows.”

The Uncomfortable Lessons

Lesson 1: Technical Sophistication ≠ Platform Maturity

We had built incredibly sophisticated technical capabilities that nobody wanted to use. The fanciest tech stack in the world doesn’t matter if it doesn’t solve real developer problems.

Now we ask: “Will this reduce developer cognitive load?” before we ask “Is this technically interesting?”

Lesson 2: You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Measure

For two years, we had been flying blind. We built features, shipped capabilities, and celebrated technical achievements—all without knowing if we were actually making developers more productive.

The measurement gap was our biggest failure. Everything else flowed from that.

Lesson 3: Platform Maturity Requires Organizational Change

Technology changes are easy compared to organizational changes. Getting developers to trust and adopt platform capabilities required changing incentives, communication patterns, and team structures—not just shipping better tools.

We had to:

  • Change how we prioritized work (user impact over technical coolness)
  • Change how we measured success (outcomes over outputs)
  • Change how we communicated (developer-facing marketing over technical documentation)
  • Change our team structure (adding product management and developer advocacy roles)

Lesson 4: Maturity Assessment Creates Accountability

Before the assessment, we could claim success without evidence. The assessment made our gaps visible and undeniable. That visibility created healthy pressure to actually improve rather than just talking about improvement.

Lesson 5: Level 2 is Harder Than Level 1

Moving from Level 1 to Level 2 in the product and measurement dimensions was harder than building all our technical capabilities. It required:

  • Learning product management skills we didn’t have
  • Developing empathy for developer experiences we didn’t understand
  • Building measurement infrastructure we’d neglected
  • Changing organizational culture around platform expectations

Technical problems have technical solutions. Organizational problems require organizational solutions—and those are much harder.

The Ongoing Journey: 6-Month Update

It’s now been six months since our initial assessment. Here’s the current state:

Developer NPS: -12 → +28

This is the metric I’m most proud of. Developers actually like working with the platform now. Not because we built more features, but because we removed friction and actually listened to what they needed.

Self-Service Success Rate: 38% → 78%

Most developers can now accomplish common tasks without platform team intervention. This freed up our team to work on strategic improvements instead of reactive support.

Platform Adoption: 48% → 82%

As the platform became more useful, adoption naturally increased. Teams that previously built custom solutions are now migrating to platform capabilities.

Developer Time Saved: ~40 hours per team per quarter

This was the business case that justified continued platform investment. Each team saves roughly one developer-week per quarter by using platform capabilities instead of building custom solutions.

What’s Next: The Level 3 Journey

We’re now working toward Level 3 maturity, focused on:

  1. Integrated platform experience: Seamless developer workflows across all platform capabilities
  2. Predictive capabilities: ML-driven capacity planning and anomaly detection
  3. Advanced automation: Progressive deployments, automated rollbacks, chaos engineering
  4. Product-market fit: Platform capabilities that developers actively seek out rather than merely tolerate

But here’s the critical difference: We’re approaching Level 3 with user research, clear metrics, and realistic timelines rather than technical hubris.

Key Takeaways for Your Assessment Journey

If you’re considering a platform maturity assessment, here’s what I’d tell you:

1. Prepare for Uncomfortable Truths

The assessment will probably show you’re less mature than you think. That’s okay. That’s the point. Embrace the discomfort as the catalyst for real improvement.

2. Start with Measurement

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Build your measurement infrastructure before you build new platform capabilities. Otherwise you’re just building more stuff without knowing if it helps.

3. Talk to Your Developers

Platform teams live in a bubble. Get out of that bubble. Shadow developers. Watch them struggle. Listen to their complaints. They’re not being difficult—they’re showing you where your platform is failing.

4. Product Thinking is Critical

Platform engineering is product management, not just infrastructure engineering. You need product managers, user researchers, and customer success thinking—not just infrastructure engineers.

5. Organizational Change is Harder Than Technical Change

Changing culture, incentives, and expectations is harder than shipping new features. Allocate resources accordingly. You need change management capability, not just technical capability.

6. Be Realistic About Timelines

Moving up maturity levels takes quarters, not weeks. Trying to jump from Level 1 to Level 4 in three months is a recipe for failure and burnout.

7. Celebrate Progress, Not Perfection

Level 2 is way better than Level 1, even if it’s not Level 4. Celebrate the incremental improvements. Maturity is a journey, not a destination.

The Bottom Line

Our platform maturity assessment was uncomfortable, humbling, and absolutely necessary. It showed us we weren’t as good as we thought—and that was the best thing that could have happened.

Six months later, we’re not at Level 4. We’re solidly at Level 2-2.5, working toward Level 3. But the difference is: we know where we stand, we know where we’re going, and we have a realistic plan to get there.

More importantly, developers actually like working with our platform now. That’s the metric that matters most.

If you’re building platform engineering capabilities without systematic maturity assessment, you’re probably overconfident about where you stand. I know I was.

Do the uncomfortable work of finding out the truth. Your platform, your developers, and your organization will be better for it.

For the complete framework and detailed assessment methodology we used, check out the comprehensive Platform Engineering Maturity Assessment guide on CrashBytes.

Have you done a platform maturity assessment? What surprised you most? I’d love to hear your experiences—share them in the comments or reach out directly.