The Rise of Sub-Specialties in Platform Engineering: A Sign of Maturity

In the early days of DevOps, it was all about breaking down silos and fostering collaboration between development and operations. But as the movement matured, we began to see the rise of specializations—DevSecOps, AIOps, FinOps, and others—each reflecting an evolving need and growing complexity within software delivery. Today, platform engineering is experiencing a similar evolution.

On a recent episode of The Podcast Engineering Show, my co-host Luca Galante and I dove deep into how the growing number of sub-specialties within platform engineering is both a sign of progress and a catalyst for what’s next. Much like DevOps in its heyday, platform engineering is no longer a monolithic function. It’s a discipline in motion—maturing, branching out and casting a light on the nuanced roles shaping the next generation of developer experience and infrastructure operations.

Having had a front-row seat to the growth of DevOps—as a co-founder of the DevOps Institute and editor-in-chief of DevOps.com—I’ve seen this pattern before. At first, everyone was just “doing DevOps.” But as organizations scaled, it became clear that security, finance, testing and even cultural change required specialized expertise within the DevOps umbrella.

The same shift is happening in platform engineering. What began as a mission to build and maintain internal developer platforms (IDPs) to improve efficiency and standardize workflows is now fragmenting into focused disciplines. These new roles are enabling teams to better tackle specific challenges—from optimizing developer experience to ensuring robust security and reliability across increasingly complex software environments.

So, what are these emerging focus areas within platform engineering? On the podcast, Luca and I discussed four key sub-specialties already gaining momentum:

DevX isn’t just a buzzword—it’s becoming a core competency. Platform engineers focused on DevX are obsessed with improving how developers interact with their tools, environments and processes. Their job is to minimize cognitive load, reduce friction and create joyful, efficient experiences that empower teams to build faster and better. Think golden paths, self-service portals and intuitive APIs.

With the rise of internal platforms as critical infrastructure, security cannot be an afterthought. Platform security engineers are increasingly responsible for embedding guardrails into platforms, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards, and integrating seamlessly with modern DevSecOps pipelines. From managing secrets and identity to monitoring access control policies, this role is crucial in safeguarding the software supply chain.

Reliability has always been a shared concern in modern software development, but it’s now a dedicated focus within platform teams. These engineers specialize in ensuring that platforms are not just functional, but resilient—capable of scaling under pressure, recovering gracefully from failure, and meeting SLAs for uptime and performance. They bring SRE practices into the platform engineering fold, aligning infrastructure and service reliability with business needs.

Observability is more than just monitoring; it’s about enabling platform teams to understand the “why” behind system behavior. Observability engineers design the instrumentation strategies, telemetry pipelines and visualization tools that provide actionable insights. They help connect the dots between user experiences and backend performance, making it possible to anticipate and resolve issues before they affect customers.

According to Luca, who also leads the thriving PlatformEngineering.org community, this specialization trend is just getting started. As internal platforms become more robust and widely adopted, we can expect additional niche roles to emerge—especially in response to new technologies and demands.

One inevitable driver of further specialization? Artificial intelligence.

AI is already changing the game in DevOps and software development. Soon, platform engineers may need to carve out new sub-disciplines that address the training, deployment and monitoring of AI workloads. Imagine roles like “AI Platform Engineer” or “ModelOps Infrastructure Specialist”—professionals focused solely on the challenges of running AI at scale, managing GPU clusters, or orchestrating large language models in production.

Similarly, we may see roles emerge around cost optimization (FinOps), compliance engineering or even internal platform product management as organizations strive to balance speed, control and cost across their software ecosystems.

What’s exciting is that these shifts point to a field that is growing up. Specialization doesn’t fragment a movement—it strengthens it. It acknowledges that one size does not fit all, and that different teams, industries and environments need tailored solutions.

As platform engineering continues to evolve, we should celebrate the emergence of new roles and disciplines. They reflect a deepening commitment to excellence, collaboration and continuous improvement.

Just like DevOps before it, platform engineering is carving out its own diverse, dynamic future—one specialization at a time.