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Platform Engineering PodcastAuthor: Cory O'Daniel, CEO of Massdriver
The Platform Engineering Podcast is a show about the real work of building and running internal platforms hosted by Cory ODaniel, longtime infrastructure and software engineer, and CEO/cofounder of Massdriver. Each episode features candid conversations with the engineers, leads, and builders shaping platform engineering today. Topics range from org structure and team ownership to infrastructure design, developer experience, and the tradeoffs behind every it depends. Cory brings two decades of experience building platforms and now spends his time thinking about how teams scale infrastructure without creating bottlenecks or burning out ops. This podcast isnt about trends. Its about how platform engineering actually works inside real companies. Whether you're deep into Terraform/OpenTofu modules, building golden paths, or just trying to keep your platform from becoming a dumpster fire youll probably find something useful here. Language: en Genres: Business, Careers, News, Tech News Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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How to Ship Faster with Feature Flags: Insights from Unleash
Episode 36
Wednesday, 24 September, 2025
Still freezing code before Black Friday and hoping nothing breaks? Feature flags can help you ship smaller, safer changes continuously—without the “big bang” risk or painful rollbacks.Cory O’Daniel talks with Unleash VP of Marketing Michael Ferranti about how modern teams use flags as a core delivery primitive alongside CI/CD and trunk-based development. They dig into kill switches for instant mitigation, progressive rollouts tied to real metrics, and why homegrown “if-statement” systems turn into hidden platforms you didn’t mean to build. They also cover the rising volume of AI‑assisted code and how flags provide the control layer to move faster while protecting reliability.What you’ll learn:How feature flags reduce risk for high-stakes periods like Black Friday by avoiding code freezesWhen to replace staging queues with progressive delivery and experiment-driven rolloutsPractical uses: kill switches, trunk-based development, targeting, and cleanup strategies to manage flag debtBuild vs. buy: why DIY flag systems become costly and how Unleash’s open source and on-prem options fit regulated or air‑gapped needsUsing business, engineering, and customer signals to automate safe ramp-ups and ramp-backsWhy AI increases code throughput, how it affects reliability, and how flags create the safety rails for agentic workflowsGuest: Michael Ferranti, VP of Marketing at UnleashMichael Ferranti has held leadership roles at Teleport, Portworx, ClusterHQ, and Rackspace Technology, with a focus on go-to-market strategy in open-source and enterprise software. At Teleport he focused on shifting from legacy security models to developer-first, identity-driven access. At Portworx, he was building new GTM strategies for Kubernetes-native storage when everyone was still figuring out containers, and he helped scale the company from under $500K in revenue to a $370M acquisition by Pure Storage. His work has centered on supporting engineering leaders in delivering features, scaling infrastructure, and improving security without adding unnecessary blockers. Michael has spoken at industry events like KubeCon and theCUBE, sharing insights on platform org design, category creation, and growing open-source adoption. Unleash, websiteUnleash, GitHubUnleash, LinkedInUnleash, XUnleash, SlackUnleash, YouTubeUnleashCon 2025Links to interesting things from this episode:ReactBitbucketLaunchDarklyServiceNow
