Culture, strategy, and mindset makes or breaks the platform engineering journey

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) operates some of the country’s most relied-upon digital services, powering online and mobile banking, investing tools, branch operations, and third-party APIs. While its core platforms have delivered exceptional reliability and performance, evolving business needs required a new approach. In this talk, Khandros shares how RBC’s platform engineering team transitioned from traditional operations to a product-centric culture. He outlines the strategic steps taken, from rebranding the team and establishing a clear mission and vision to developing product roadmaps, measuring success through KPIs and OKRs, and setting ambitious goals that align with organizational priorities. The session highlights the importance of cultural change, the value of strategic storytelling to senior leadership, and the mindset shift required to treat platforms as products—not just infrastructure. Attendees will come away with practical insights on enabling platform engineering at enterprise scale through intentional change. Learn more: https://platformcon.com/sessions/culture-strategy-and-mindset-makes-or-breaks-the-platform-engineering-journey