When a global financial services platform team supporting 30,000+ developers and 4,000+ projects needed to prepare for rapid growth, its Internal Developer Platform (IDP) reached a turning point. Already one of the largest implementations on Google Cloud, the platform had enabled innovation for years — but usage was projected to grow 5–10x.
The question was clear: how could the team evolve its platform to meet the demands of the future without slowing down today?
The institution’s first-generation IDP (v1), launched in 2017, had been a success story in itself. It streamlined development, supported thousands of projects, and proved that large-scale platform engineering could be done within the strict demands of the financial industry. But as the platform team planned for its next wave of growth, without significant investment in people, we needed to find a way to hyperscale.
The challenge was not just about straight-up growth.
The platform also had to:
The institution’s first-generation IDP (v1), launched in 2017, had been a success story in itself. It streamlined development, supported thousands of projects, and proved that large-scale platform engineering could be done within the strict demands of the financial industry. But as the platform team planned for its next wave of growth, without significant investment in people, we needed to find a way to hyperscale.
The challenge was not just about straight-up growth.
The platform also had to:
Automate repetitive tasks to boost productivity.
Meet strict regulatory requirements.
Build v2 without simply adding headcount.
Standardise processes across thousands of projects.
Stay ahead with new technologies and business needs.
Ensure long-term sustainability and innovation.
The challenge was how to evolve from a solid but limited v1 into a future-ready v2 without simply scaling headcount.
The v2 platform was re-architected around the operator pattern model, with Kubernetes as the foundation for delivering new solutions from the platform team.
Key design principles included:
Developers can now provision, configure, and manage their environments directly, without waiting for manual approvals or platform team intervention. By reducing bottlenecks and streamlining workflows, self-service empowers developers to move faster, while maintaining oversight and control over shared resources.
Developers can now provision, configure, and manage their environments directly, without waiting for manual approvals or platform team intervention. By reducing bottlenecks and streamlining workflows, self-service empowers developers to move faster, while maintaining oversight and control over shared resources.
Together, these practices established a platform that is not only capable of supporting thousands more projects but also simpler, safer, and more consistent to use.
The second-generation Internal Developer Platform (v2) is already delivering significant, measurable improvements:
Designed to handle 10,000+ projects efficiently, maintaining performance and reliability as usage grows
Standardised pipelines and GitOps workflows reduce lead times, making deployments quicker and more predictable
Declarative policy enforcement and least-privilege defaults help ensure compliance and minimise risk
Automation and self-service capabilities free developers from repetitive manual tasks, letting them focus on building features
Operators and templates enforce best practices, improving maintainability and reducing errors across projects
Modular architecture and automated processes enable the platform to adapt rapidly to new technologies and evolving business needs
This was more than a technical upgrade — it was about enabling the platform team to keep pace with the business. With v2, Global Cloud Services now has a resilient, compliant foundation that can evolve alongside future technology and regulatory requirements.
And while v2 defines the next stage of the internal platform, we’ve extended the same vision into our new product line. Learn more about Athena and our external offering here