Abstract
We have all seen the moment: the platform goes live, the launch deck looks sharp, the portal is polished, the golden paths are documented, and yet teams quietly continue doing things the old way. Not always because the platform is bad, but because adoption was assumed, not owned.
Drawing on my experience from travel technology at Booking.com, along with platform and architecture work across banking, healthcare, telecom, automotive, and government/defence domains, this talk looks at the adoption problem behind many platform engineering initiatives and internal developer platforms. Using real platform patterns, team behaviours, and lessons learned from both successful and struggling platforms, I’ll explore why “build it and they will come” rarely works, why platform decisions create long-lived operational memory, and how team type, ownership, contracts, and trust shape whether a platform becomes a multiplier or another system people work around.
The session will leave platform engineers and technology leaders with practical ways to spot adoption risks early, reduce friction before enforcing standards, and design platforms that teams can actually rely on in production.
Speaker
Shweta Vohra
Architecture Leader @Booking.com, Author of "Decoding Platform Engineering Patterns" & "Dear Software and AI Architect", 24+ Years Experience Building Cloud, Platform, and AI Systems
Shweta Vohra is a technology leader, author, inventor, and speaker with over 24 years of experience building cloud, platform, and AI systems across global enterprises. She currently serves as an architecture leader at Booking.com, the world’s leading travel technology company, and brings cross-industry experience across travel, healthcare, telecom, automotive, and Banking, helping teams design resilient systems and navigate complex technology transformation.
She is the author of Decoding Platform Engineering Patterns and Dear Software and AI Architect, with multiple patents and publications in cloud, platform engineering, and emerging technology. Her work sits at the intersection of platform strategy, software architecture, AI-native systems, and engineering leadership.
Through her talks and writing, Shweta explores how organizations can build platforms that are not only technically strong, but strategically meaningful — helping engineering teams reduce complexity, improve developer experience, and evolve with confidence in a rapidly changing technology landscape.
