Hi all, Just watching Kaspars video on "Backstage: Platform engineering dream or nightmare?" and it resonates a lot the situation I am working in. A client I'm working for is going for the strategy of "platform engineering by just deploying backstage", which the service I work with needs to be integrated with. Has anyone seen the approach of "just deploying backstage and then let teams offer whatever they want to offer" approach working? Any tips and tricks to offer you service effectively in such an environment?

Sadly no. “Just deploy Backstage and then whatever…” usually doesn’t fly. The problem being, that discoverability of services is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem domain. If we’re just talking “services”, then an API gateway would offer the same discoverability while also offering actual functionality to developers - making them go there.

The issue in just applying backstage and then do whatever you like is that it doesn't really resonate with platform engineering...what does the end-users/developers actually need, what does backstage solve for them? It takes time and effort to understand the needs and building something that actually makes their life better.