Standards spare your sanity

Effective platform engineering requires balancing flexibility with consistency. In this talk, David Cleaver builds on his previous work advocating for paved paths and best practices to highlight how standards can be a powerful tool for maintaining stability and scalability across platforms. Cleaver outlines a practical framework for deciding where and how to standardize without stifling innovation or incurring resistance from development teams. Drawing from real-world experience, Cleaver discusses the trade-offs between strict and permissive approaches, offering guidance on mitigating fragmentation when standardization is not feasible. This session is ideal for engineering leaders and platform teams seeking to scale their systems while maintaining developer autonomy and organizational clarity. Learn more: https://platformcon.com/sessions/standards-spare-your-sanity