Platform Disciplines
1 module is currently being reworked. Watch this section over the next few days.
Platform Disciplines turns foundation theory into operating practice: SRE, platform engineering, delivery automation, security, data, AI, cost, and leadership. Use Platform Foundations when the underlying concepts are shaky, and move to Platform Toolkits when you need concrete tools and implementation patterns. The path through Disciplines is role-shaped.
Default Order
Section titled “Default Order”There is no single perfect order for every learner. Use the sequence that matches the work you are moving toward.
| Route | Recommended sequence |
|---|---|
| SRE | SRE -> Kubernetes Networking -> DevSecOps -> Chaos Engineering -> Release Engineering |
| DevEx Builder | Platform Engineering -> GitOps -> Infrastructure as Code -> Release Engineering -> Platform Leadership |
| Platform Architect | Platform Engineering -> Kubernetes Networking -> Infrastructure as Code -> AI Infrastructure -> FinOps -> Platform Leadership |
If you are unsure, start with Platform Engineering. It is the common product layer for most platform work.
Discipline Sections
Section titled “Discipline Sections”| Section | Modules | Best for | Pair with |
|---|---|---|---|
| SRE | — | SREs and operators responsible for reliability, incident response, and service ownership | Reliability Engineering and Observability Theory |
| Platform Engineering | — | platform teams building internal products for developers | Systems Thinking and Engineering Leadership |
| Platform Leadership | — | leads shaping adoption, team structure, roadmaps, and operating models | Engineering Leadership and Platform Engineering |
| GitOps | — | teams managing infrastructure and applications through reviewed Git workflows | Infrastructure as Code and Security Principles |
| Release Engineering | — | teams shipping software through repeatable build, test, rollout, and rollback systems | Reliability Engineering and GitOps |
| Infrastructure as Code | — | engineers standardizing environments, cloud resources, policy, and lifecycle management | Distributed Systems and GitOps |
| DevSecOps | — | security-minded platform and delivery teams embedding controls into pipelines | Security Principles and Release Engineering |
| Chaos Engineering | — | SREs and resilience teams validating failure behavior before incidents | Reliability Engineering and Distributed Systems |
| Kubernetes Networking | — | platform operators and architects responsible for CNI, ingress, service mesh, and policy | Advanced Networking and Security Principles |
| MLOps | — | teams operating model training, deployment, governance, and lifecycle workflows | Distributed Systems and Data Engineering |
| AIOps | — | operations teams applying machine learning to events, incidents, and observability signals | Observability Theory and SRE |
| AI Infrastructure | — | architects and platform teams running GPU scheduling, distributed training, and LLM serving | Distributed Systems and Kubernetes Networking |
| Data Engineering | — | data platform teams running pipelines, storage, orchestration, and streaming on Kubernetes | Distributed Systems and Infrastructure as Code |
| FinOps | — | platform owners and engineering leaders accountable for cloud cost, usage, and value | Systems Thinking and Platform Leadership |
Prerequisites Check
Section titled “Prerequisites Check”Before you read Disciplines, you should already understand:
- core Kubernetes objects, scheduling, services, storage, and workload lifecycle from a base Kubernetes route
- Linux, networking, and cloud fundamentals well enough to troubleshoot a running service
- the main ideas in Platform Foundations, especially systems thinking, reliability, observability, security, and distributed systems
- Git workflows, CI/CD basics, environment promotion, and rollback concepts
- how teams own production systems: alerts, incidents, postmortems, service levels, and change management
- the difference between learning a discipline and selecting a specific implementation tool
Next Handoffs
Section titled “Next Handoffs”Move into Toolkits when you are ready to implement the practices with concrete systems.
| When you are ready to… | Go next |
|---|---|
| choose concrete tools for delivery, operations, security, or data platforms | Platform Toolkits |
| repair weak theory behind a discipline | Platform Foundations |
| go deeper on Kubernetes administration or certification scope | Kubernetes |
| strengthen Linux, networking, and troubleshooting basics | Linux |
| connect platform work to cloud provider architecture | Cloud |