Platform engineering is trying to deliver the self-service tools teams want to consume to rapidly deploy all components of software. While it may sound like a TypeScript developer would feel more empowered by writing their infrastructure in TypeScript, the reality is that it’s a significant undertaking to learn to use these tools properly when all one wants to do is create or modify a few resources for their project. This is also a common source of technical debt and fragility. Most users will probably learn the minimal amount they need to in order to make progress in their project, and oftentimes this may not be the best solution for the longevity of a codebase. These tools are straddling an awkward line that is optimized for no-one. Traditional DevOps are not software engineers and software engineers are not DevOps. By making infrastructure a software engineering problem, it puts all parties in an unfamiliar position. I am not saying no-one is capable of using these tools well. The DevOps and software engineers I’ve worked with are more than capable. This is a matter of attention. If you look at what a DevOps engineer has to deal with day-in and day-out, the nuances of TypeScript or Go will take a backseat. And conversely, the nuances of, for example, a VPC will take a backseat to a software engineer delivering a new feature. The gap that the AWS CDK and Pulumi try to bridge is not optimized for anyone and this is how we get bugs, and more dangerously, security holes.