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Platform Engineering vs DevOps vs SRE - The Identity Crisis
Platform Engineer roles pay 20% more than DevOps Engineer roles, but job descriptions are 90% identical. Is Platform Engineering just DevOps with better marketing?
In this episode, we cut through the confusion with origin stories, philosophy comparisons, and practical career advice.
Key insights:
• Platform Engineer job postings grew 40% YoY while DevOps postings declined 15%
• DevOps (2009) was a movement—never meant to be a job title
• SRE (2003/2016) introduced Google's 50% engineering time rule
• Platform Engineering (2018-2020) brought product thinking to internal tools
• The 20% salary premium is for product thinking, not the title
Decision framework: Start with DevOps culture (non-negotiable) → Add SRE when reliability is your pain point → Add Platform Engineering when cognitive load kills velocity
News segment: PgBouncer CVE-2025-12819 patch, MinIO Docker CVE controversy, GitHub CI/CD observability with OpenTelemetry guide
Resources and transcript: https://platform-engineering-playbook.io/podcasts/00045-platform-engineering-vs-devops-vs-sre
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By vibesrePlatform Engineer roles pay 20% more than DevOps Engineer roles, but job descriptions are 90% identical. Is Platform Engineering just DevOps with better marketing?
In this episode, we cut through the confusion with origin stories, philosophy comparisons, and practical career advice.
Key insights:
• Platform Engineer job postings grew 40% YoY while DevOps postings declined 15%
• DevOps (2009) was a movement—never meant to be a job title
• SRE (2003/2016) introduced Google's 50% engineering time rule
• Platform Engineering (2018-2020) brought product thinking to internal tools
• The 20% salary premium is for product thinking, not the title
Decision framework: Start with DevOps culture (non-negotiable) → Add SRE when reliability is your pain point → Add Platform Engineering when cognitive load kills velocity
News segment: PgBouncer CVE-2025-12819 patch, MinIO Docker CVE controversy, GitHub CI/CD observability with OpenTelemetry guide
Resources and transcript: https://platform-engineering-playbook.io/podcasts/00045-platform-engineering-vs-devops-vs-sre