# One year of platform engineering certifications: What 2,000 students taught us

DevFeed: [One year of platform engineering certifications: What 2,000 students taught us](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/one-year-of-platform-engineering-certifications-what-2-000-students-taught-us-12191.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://platformengineering.org/blog/one-year-of-platform-engineering-certifications-2000-students>)

Author: Sam Barlien

Published: 2026-07-23T05:40:01Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Platform Engineering Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/platform-engineering-blog.md>)

Topics: [Platform Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/platform-engineering.md>), [Software Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software-engineering.md>), [DevOps](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/devops.md>), [site-reliability-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/site-reliability-engineering.md>)

Tags: [and-best-practices](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/and-best-practices.md>), [best-practices](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/best-practices.md>), [devops](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/devops.md>), [junior](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/junior.md>), [platform-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/platform-engineering.md>), [survey](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/survey.md>), [training](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/training.md>)

## AI overview

The article reflects on the first year of Platform Engineering University and the lessons from nearly 2,000 students. It explains that senior platform engineers, platform leaders, and technical strategists became the main audience, seeking validation, shared terminology, and alignment around platform engineering practices. These findings led to a four-tier certification and learning architecture designed for platform teams at different levels.

## Source excerpt

Learn what 2,000 students taught us about platform engineering. Discover why senior engineers and platform leaders are the primary audience, and how our single course evolved into a certification architecture for shared team language and best practices.