Platforming the Platform - Running Our IDP With Our IDP

Learn how Spotify engineers build and operate Portal, their Backstage-based Internal Developer Platform, by using the platform to run itself in this 15-minute conference talk. Discover how dogfooding their own platform while leveraging Spotify's internal observability and tooling ecosystem enables faster delivery, reduced operational risk, and improved developer experience for both internal teams and external customers. Explore the benefits of internal-external partnerships in platform engineering, including how building with the same tools they provide sharpens empathy, reduces mean time to recovery (MTTR), and enables richer, more scalable defaults. Gain insights into creating better feedback loops, minimizing operational fire drills, and achieving happier engineers across all platform layers while scaling modern systems effectively and reducing fragmentation and cognitive overload.