More than code: How to win your internal customers - Jen Devonshire | PlatformCon 2026

Escaping the "monolith trap" requires platform engineering teams to transition from mere tool builders to internal SaaS product providers. At Anaplan, the shift from a shared, high-risk MySQL infrastructure to a self-service Kubernetes database operator succeeded by adopting a "three-hat model" of product management, marketing, and sales. By identifying "beachhead" teams for early adoption and providing "white-glove" deployment services to overcome developer inertia, the platform team achieved a state of zero database-related incidents over a year. Key strategies for driving internal adoption include aligning with leadership to prioritize platform work in developer roadmaps and treating internal documentation and training as part of a "whole product" offering. This shift not only reduces incident recovery time but also empowers engineers to independently scale infrastructure, replacing on-call "dependency nightmares" with confidence and autonomy.