Why do 70% of organizations still struggle to adopt infrastructure as code? Sören Martius, CPO and co-founder of Terramate, joins Cory O'Daniel to tackle the challenges of modern infrastructure management and the delicate balance between vendor trust and lock-in.

The conversation explores practical solutions for common infrastructure challenges, from managing monolithic state files to orchestrating complex deployments. Martius shares insights on:

• When to maintain a monolithic state file versus breaking it into smaller units
• How infrastructure needs evolve as engineering teams grow beyond 100 people
• Why anti-lock-in features build trust with operations teams
• The role of AI in detecting and remediating infrastructure misconfigurations

For teams wrestling with infrastructure complexity or evaluating new tools, this discussion offers practical perspectives on building scalable, maintainable infrastructure while avoiding common pitfalls around vendor lock-in and team adoption.

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Building infrastructure tooling doesn't require massive VC funding or a huge team - just ask Malcolm Matalka, co-founder of bootstrapped Terrateam. Malcolm shares his journey from real estate websites to investment banking to biotech, before landing in infrastructure automation.

Learn how Terrateam takes a unique "libraries over frameworks" approach to development, prioritizing simplicity and control by carefully selecting dependencies and building critical components in-house. Malcolm explains how this philosophy leads to more maintainable code and better security outcomes.

As an early participant in the OpenTofu fork, Malcolm provides insights into the community response and adoption challenges. He discusses how Terrateam helps teams streamline their infrastructure workflows by integrating directly with existing tools and processes rather than forcing new ones.

For platform engineers looking to simplify their infrastructure management, Malcolm describes the ideal Terrateam user as someone who wants infrastructure changes to flow naturally through their existing development process without added complexity.

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Is GitOps holding your team back? In this thought-provoking conversation with Massdriver co-founder Dave Williams, we challenge conventional wisdom around cloud infrastructure management and explore why traditional approaches to compliance and self-service may be creating more problems than they solve.

Discover how leading organizations are moving beyond ceremonial approval processes to create truly automated, self-service platforms that enhance developer productivity while maintaining security and control. Learn why treating infrastructure as code differently from application code could be the key to unlocking engineering velocity.

Key topics covered:

• Why compliance doesn't require manual GitOps workflows
• Creating meaningful abstractions that codify operations expertise
• The shift from reactive to proactive infrastructure governance
• How platform teams can become strategic enablers rather than bottlenecks

Whether you're a platform engineer, engineering leader, or developer frustrated with current infrastructure processes, this episode offers practical insights for evolving your approach to cloud operations.

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