REA Group outs Launchpad, a platform engineering capability

REA Group is building a central platform engineering group and capability it is calling Launchpad, with a goal to get its product and delivery teams shipping faster.

Image credit: REA Group

The platform engineering program has been revealed in a series of job role openings since the start of July.

An REA spokesperson initially acknowledged a request for further information made by iTnews on July 16, but since then multiple requests have gone unanswered.

The advertisements provide a reasonable amount of detail about what Launchpad is, what it is intended to do for REA Group, and what capabilities it will encompass.

“Launchpad is REA’s central platform engineering group, the engine behind our engineering culture,” one advertisement states.

“Our mission is to create seamless tech experiences and engaging environments that accelerate innovation across the entire company. 

“We empower hundreds of engineers by providing the foundational platforms, expert guidance, and developer tooling they need to build, run, and operate software with speed and confidence.”

The platform engineering function sits within REA’s Global Technology group, according to another advertisement.

A third advertisement, meanwhile states that “Launchpad exists to provide one platform for every product team at REA, bringing together platform engineering, cloud, FinOps, data management, data intelligence and production runtime capabilities so delivery teams can ship faster.”

That also suggests that some of these technical domains will become “pillars” within Launchpad, with attached “squads” - typically cross-functional and self-governing groupings of personnel common in agile environments - working toward their own specific goals.

Within the “cloud engineering” pillar, for example, a squad called “Polaris” will exist, with a defined “mission to enable cost-efficient and compliant cloud operations by empowering teams with clear information, guidance and automation”.

A second squad, codenamed DevX, meanwhile "is responsible for several flagship products that accelerate REA’s 100-plus product teams", although it is not immediately clear what these are.

Products, in this sense, refers to platforms. REA Group states that any platforms built under Launchpad would be treated "as products, with our fellow engineers as our customers."

"This means we are obsessed with reducing their cognitive load and creating paved roads that make it simple to do the right thing," a role description states.

"As a collective, we provide the capabilities, guardrails and expertise necessary to help achieve our goal of becoming the number one tech company."

A newer role description points to planned work in the data domain as well, including evolving an existing federated data model that exists internally at REA.

It also states that Launchpad’s role in the data domain will cover “building and licensing REA’s data platform, improving the quality, access and usage of data, building reusable data products, and investing in the reliability, quality and security of systems and data.”