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Programming for Platform Engineers

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Master the programming skills essential for platform engineering, from scripting and automation to building robust platform tools and services.

Core Programming Languages​

Python​

  • Automation and scripting
  • Infrastructure as Code tools (Boto3, Terraform CDK)
  • Data processing and analysis
  • Building CLI tools

Go​

  • Cloud-native application development
  • Kubernetes operators and controllers
  • High-performance system tools
  • Concurrent programming patterns

Shell Scripting​

  • Bash scripting best practices
  • System administration tasks
  • CI/CD pipeline scripts
  • One-liners for common tasks

JavaScript/TypeScript​

  • Frontend dashboards and monitoring UIs
  • Node.js for backend services
  • Serverless functions
  • API development

Platform Engineering Patterns​

Infrastructure as Code​

  • Declarative vs imperative approaches
  • Terraform modules and best practices
  • CloudFormation and CDK patterns
  • GitOps workflows

API Development​

  • RESTful API design
  • GraphQL for platform services
  • gRPC for microservices
  • API versioning strategies

Automation Frameworks​

  • Ansible playbook development
  • Python automation libraries
  • Task orchestration with Airflow
  • Custom operator development

Software Engineering Practices​

Code Quality​

  • Testing strategies (unit, integration, e2e)
  • Code review best practices
  • Static analysis and linting
  • Documentation standards

Version Control​

  • Git workflows for infrastructure code
  • Branch protection and policies
  • Monorepo vs polyrepo strategies
  • Semantic versioning

CI/CD Implementation​

  • Pipeline as code
  • Automated testing strategies
  • Deployment automation
  • Rollback mechanisms

Building Platform Tools​

CLI Development​

  • Command-line interface design
  • Argument parsing and validation
  • Interactive prompts
  • Distribution and packaging

Monitoring & Observability Tools​

  • Metrics collection agents
  • Log aggregation tools
  • Custom Prometheus exporters
  • Tracing instrumentation

Internal Developer Platforms​

  • Self-service portals
  • Service catalogs
  • Developer experience tools
  • Platform abstractions

Interview Coding Challenges​

Common coding scenarios:

  • Implement a rate limiter
  • Build a simple load balancer
  • Create a log parser
  • Design a configuration management system

Ready to code your way to platform excellence? Let's start building!