InfoQ - Platform Engineering

Instacart Builds Blueberry, an AI-Powered Assistant to Help On-Call Engineers Investigate Incidents

Leela Kumili — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:34:00 GMT

Instacart introduced Blueberry, an AI-assisted incident response system that helps on-call engineers investigate production issues faster. It combines AI agents, operational data, and historical incident knowledge to generate grounded root cause hypotheses in Slack. It uses parallel subagents, MCP integrations, and incident history to reduce investigation time while keeping engineers in control.

By Leela Kumili

Article: InfoQ Culture and Methods Trends Report - 2026

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT

This report summarizes how the InfoQ Culture and Methods editorial team sees the ongoing and emergent trends in the culture and methods space in 2026.

By Shane Hastie, Ben Linders, Vanessa Formicola, Shawna Martell, Rafiq Gemmail, Craig Smith, Phillip Mortimer, Yinka Omole

Podcast: Culture & Methods Trends 2026: The Human Side of AI Engineering

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT

This is the Engineering Culture Trends Report for 2026. Featuring a panel of QCon speakers and InfoQ contributors, they discussed AI adoption maturity and risk, the transformation of engineering team structures and roles, and the human dimensions of software development that must not be lost in 2026.

By Ben Linders, Rafiq Gemmail, Craig Smith, Vanessa Formicola, Shawna Martell, Phillip Mortimer, Yinka Omole

From Projects to Products: Turning Platforms into Products People Use

Ben Linders — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:59:00 GMT

Having a platform is not enough; the real challenge is ensuring that it is understandable, usable, and actually adopted by its users. A capability is done when it can be reliably used by others. To evaluate progress, you can ask yourself “Is this being used?” and “Does it reduce friction for users?” This can help align development work with actual user value rather than delivery,

By Ben Linders

Presentation: From ms to µs: OSS Valkey Architecture Patterns for Modern AI

Dumanshu Goyal — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:34:00 GMT

Dumanshu Goyal discusses optimizing data layers for low-latency workloads like AI feature stores. Drawing lessons from NASA's Space Shuttle, he explains how proxy architectures introduce hidden CPU costs, elevated tail latencies, and blast-radius risks. He demonstrates how direct-access Valkey architectures achieve microsecond latency, improve resilience, and slash infrastructure costs.

By Dumanshu Goyal

Platform Engineering Maturity Emerges as a Key Differentiator for Enterprise AI Success

Craig Risi — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Platform engineering maturity is emerging as an important factor in determining whether organizations can turn AI adoption into sustainable operational value, according to Perforce Software's 2026 Platform Engineering Report.

By Craig Risi

Article: The Hard-Stop Rule: from 3 HCM Monoliths to 120 Domain Microservices

Prashanth Pasham — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT

A payroll and HR software team rebuilt three monoliths into over 120 smaller services over five years, with no dedicated migration budget. Every new feature was built as its own service instead of changing the old ones. The article covers the pull-based migration, the tools that made this possible, how costs were kept down, and the problems the team ran into along the way.

By Prashanth Pasham