Intent realization in self-serve platforms

Intent realization is about bridging the gap between what a user wants to do (intent) and what they are able to do (realization) on a platform. At Netflix, it has become the cornerstone of data infrastructure. Developers leverage tooling in the form of drag-and-drop UI’s, Gradle plugins, etc., to capture, version, and realize the intended actions for use cases like provisioning data pipelines, moving data from source to sinks, and creating workflows. This presentation discusses the critical role of self-service and intent realization in platform engineering. We examine the constraints of existing tooling like YAML config and explore the need for user-friendly interfaces.