Over the past two years, I’ve been part of building and maintaining a platform where Infrastructure as Code isn’t just a tool — it is the product. Along this journey, we’ve faced a unique set of challenges that go far beyond writing Terraform modules or defining cloud resources. This talk explores what happens when the abstractions created for scalability and flexibility begin to clash with user experience. From bridging the knowledge gap between the underlying technology and end users, to managing the complexity that comes with more configuration options, I’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons learned. We’ll also dive into one of the hardest aspects of maintaining large IaC systems: testing. How do you ensure reliability when every configuration combination can generate a different infrastructure outcome? And how can we build meaningful observability that focuses not only on infrastructure health, but also on giving users actionable insights to optimize performance and control costs? If you’re building or scaling a product powered by IaC, this talk provides a candid look at the trade-offs, challenges, and strategies to make your platform both powerful and user-friendly.
Luis is passionate about the Cloud-Native ecosystem, with Kubernetes playing a central role in all the projects he has worked on. He continuously hones his skills in this area, exploring the CNCF landscape for innovative technologies that solve real-world challenges. Outside of work, Luis is committed to knowledge sharing. He has published several articles and is an active participant in multiple discussion groups, contributing to the wider DevOps community.
