“If you want teams to be successful using vibe coding tools, you need the platform teams that are managing the platforms that they’re using,” said Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Mark O’Neill.
Amelia Kinsinger
Platform teams are becoming the unsung heroes of the AI era.
During an Oct. 20 panel at the 2026 Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, Florida, Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Mark O’Neill highlighted the importance of platform teams, or professionals who support software development teams by creating and maintaining infrastructure and processes for AI-native application development platforms.
“If you want teams to be successful using vibe coding tools, you need the platform teams that are managing the platforms that they’re using, but also the applications that get built,” O’Neill said.
What are platform teams? Alan Rencher, CTO at Henry Schein One, a dental practice management software company, compared the dynamic between platform and development teams to the teams that help build freeways.
“The team out there putting the concrete on the ground shouldn’t have to think about how the rebar fits in the form and all that,” Rencher said. “That’s already figured out before…so when they get there, they just pour the concrete.”
Core players. While not new, platform teams have become increasingly desired by companies in recent years. According to Lightcast data provided to IT Brew, there were 61,336 unique platform engineer job postings between January and October 2026, a significant rise from the 39,966 unique postings in the entirety of 2025.
That’s likely because of the crucial role these engineers play in enabling AI-first organizations. Darren Meyer, a security researcher at Checkmarx, told IT Brew that platform teams help establish a common set of controls around vibe coding tools, as just one example of the work they do.
“It’s kind of like if you’re opening a business and you’re just wandering down the street selling coffee to people. There’s very little control,” Meyer said, adding platform teams are more akin to doing business within an office park or similarly controlled space, where you need to adhere to broader regulations to ensure everything is done safely.
Meyer added that platform teams also help enable tiny teams, or leaner software engineering teams that are growing in popularity across the industry, to succeed by providing reusable AI capabilities and automated workflows.
“It enables a small team, which inherently moves a little faster anyway, to then move even faster because you’re taking away decisions that they just don’t need to make, because they’re not core to what they’re delivering,” he said.
Keeping the momentum going. Rencher told IT Brew that companies will continue to invest in platform teams into 2027.
“The companies that will be successful will embrace this,” Rencher said. “The companies that won’t be successful will omit it or won’t realize it. I think it’s a clear indicator of a successful growing software company.”
