Platform engineering hindered by diverse embedded development needs

Yet nearly two-thirds (63%) of embedded software from organisations with a platform engineering strategy is still created with custom, ad hoc solutions, according to 2024 research ‘Increase Productivity, Quality, and Efficiency with Platform Engineering’ from Forrester Consulting commissioned by Qt Group.

This is despite the respondents’ perceived maturity of their organisation’s platform engineering strategy: 65% see their platform as the foundation upon which embedded software is built, with ongoing efforts to enhance capabilities and increase automation and use case coverage.  

The findings highlight the difficulty many embedded teams face trying to straddle the line between productivity and compliance with strict quality and safety requirements. 

Embedded teams need flexible, scalable platforms compliant with safety and quality standards

In fact, the need for quality is why most embedded teams pursue platform engineering in the first place. The top business benefits they associate with platform engineering include: 

• Improved end-customer experience (68%) due to more reliable, higher-quality reliable software. 
• Enhanced compliance with industry standards and security (56%). 
• Improved brand identity (57%) and workflow efficiency (54%) due to streamlined workflows that help maintain a consistent look and functionality across products.

However, half of embedded developers with a platform engineering strategy (49%) struggle to balance reusability of standardised, high-quality components with the need to adapt platforms to various use cases, hardware, and software solutions. The specific needs of software and hardware platforms, combined with the need to integrate a variety of non-standardised devices and functionalities, still impose a large amount of custom development on teams, preventing them from maximising the value from their platforms.

• 51% say it’s hard to work across devices, operating systems, hardware, and form factors  
• 44% say embedded systems lack unified UI/UX design processes for accessibility and inclusivity
• 41% say cross-functional collaboration is hard across design, development, testing, and deployment
• 43% struggle to maintain self-service capabilities for most use cases

Despite this, almost everyone (93%) says their company’s leadership supports existing platform engineering strategies.

“We have noticed a gap in the market between the perceived maturity of platform engineering strategies and actual benefits derived from them. Too much work is still being done manually to address the specific needs, whether it be in sectors like medtech, automotive, or industrial automation,” says Juhapekka Niemi, Executive Vice President at Qt Group. “Platforms should be designed to support change, integrate with evolving technology, and work across a variety of hardware and software platforms. Leveraging a flexible, scalable, and quality-assured framework is key – as is using optimised cross-platform components that are easily deployable. This has been Qt’s guiding principle for many years, and it’s why we’ve seen many customers leverage the Qt Framework as the cornerstone of their platform strategy.”

Embedded teams need to foster a thriving ecosystem and talent community

Because embedded development requires diverse specialised skills, 50% of respondents say talent shortages are the top blockers to better platform strategies. Other key blockers include difficulty integrating legacy platforms (49%) and cultural resistance from product teams (34%).

“On the one hand, embedded engineers face the challenge of understanding the end-user experience for the technical machines they design,” says Maurice Kalinowski, Product Director at Qt Group. “On the other, more widely available web developers, who focus on usability, face steep learning curves in adapting to the embedded space and its intricacies like C/C++ plug-ins, cross platform development, etc. This makes the need for unifying standards stronger than ever.”

Embedded teams want integration capabilities with best-of-breed tools

Selecting the right tools is critical for an effective platform engineering strategy. As for what the right tool is, the dominant theme is that respondents want tools with lots of integration capabilities, and they want those tools to have comprehensive security.

Over half (52%) of embedded teams with a platform engineering strategy prioritise dedicated, best-of-breed tools that seamlessly work together with existing tech. Just a third (35%) prioritise all-in-one, end-to-end capabilities. Integration is important to respondents in situations where, for example, specialised security tools need to be compatible within a development framework to ensure robust protection without compromising on performance. To that point, 49% deem safety, security, and compliance as an essential outcome of their platform engineering strategy. Around 43% also emphasised the importance of customisable APIs for third-party integrations.

“Different APIs have varying agreements and latency times, exposing systems to more security risks and privacy regulations, as developers need to ensure the third-party software handles sensitive data appropriately,” says Miao Luo, Director of Technology Strategy. “The best way for platform teams to mitigate this is by closely monitoring technical debt and minimising the number of third-party elements in play.”