Platform engineering has matured quickly over the last few years. Self-service works on day one. But day two and beyond — governance, change, policy enforcement, and fleet-wide consistency — is where things start to creak. This is where platform orchestration becomes the missing piece. In this post, we’ll connect the dots between platform intent and platform reality, using Syntasso Kratix Enterprise (SKE).

We’re heading to Atlanta for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025, and this year’s lineup is one you won’t want to miss. From insightful talks on platform engineering patterns to deep dives into Kubernetes observability, the Syntasso team will share practical lessons, open-source insights, and a new O’Reilly report that’s shaping how enterprises think about internal developer platforms.

Workflow engines are having a moment in platform engineering. Tools like Temporal, Camunda, or n8n are being adopted to manage stateful automation, retries, and human approvals. They’re powerful, but they’re not platforms.  This post distils the workflow-engine thread from our webinar “Beyond the Platform Facade: Why Portals and Pipelines Aren’t Enough,” which Abby hosted and I presented.