Ajay Chankramath - Team Topologies Advocate
Ajay Chankramath - Team Topologies Advocate
Ajay Chankramath is a seasoned technology leader with over three decades of experience in software engineering, platform strategy, and enterprise transformation. Currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer and Global Managing Director for Platform & Products at Brillio, Ajay leads the firm’s efforts to deliver engineering excellence across horizontal capabilities and vertical industry solutions. He has previously held senior leadership roles at globally respected organizations such as Thoughtworks, Oracle Marketing Cloud, Broadridge, and Xilinx, consistently driving innovation in developer experience, cloud-native platforms, and large-scale modernization programs.
Ajay is widely recognized as an authority in platform engineering and AI-led transformation. He is the co-author of Effective Platform Engineering, a practitioner-focused book published by Manning Publications that explores the intersection of internal developer platforms, SRE, and GenAI. A frequent keynote speaker and contributor to global conferences and industry publications, Ajay is passionate about helping enterprises unlock business value through scalable, secure, and developer-friendly engineering platforms. His current work focuses on building intelligent platforms powered by observability, agentic AI, and domain-driven orchestration to enable high-velocity product development.
You can reach Ajay via:
Team Topologies Advocacy
Although I have long understood the critical role of team structure in digital transformation, it was Team Topologies that gave me a powerful, shared vocabulary to design and scale platform engineering initiatives across industries. As a transformation agent, I have applied the Team Topologies model in dozens of modernization programs—helping enterprises move from fragmented, siloed delivery to fast-flow, platform-enabled organizations. Whether building product-aligned Stream-aligned Teams, nurturing Enabling Teams to uplift DevEx, or operationalizing Platform-as-a-Product thinking, I have consistently used Team Topologies to architect systems and the teams that build them.
I've used Team Topologies concepts extensively in our book Effective Platform ENgineering, where it serves as a foundational model for structuring Internal Developer Platforms and aligning team interactions with system boundaries. I also try and bring these concepts to life as an instructor for platformengineering.org, incorporating team-first thinking into real-world platform architectures and maturity models. For me, Team Topologies is more than a framework—it’s a compass guiding how modern engineering organizations evolve with clarity, speed, and sustainability.
Most of my platform engineering presentations available over the past few months have implicit references to Team Topologies.
Specifically, Chapter 10 of my book “Effective Platform Engineering" builds on the concept of Team Topologies
Here's a collection of blogs, talks and articles:
Emphasis on Team Structures and Interaction Modes - I discuss the importance of designing team structures that align with software architecture, a core idea in Team Topologies. I highlight the need for clear team responsibilities and effective communication pathways, which resonate with the framework's focus on well-defined team types and interaction modes.
Focus on Reducing Cognitive Load - The content I create in the PE space emphasizes creating environments where teams can operate with reduced cognitive load, enabling them to focus on delivering value. This aligns with Team Topologies' principle of organizing teams to minimize unnecessary complexity and dependencies.
Platform as a Product Mindset - I advocate for treating internal platforms as products, ensuring they meet the needs of their users—primarily the development teams. This approach mirrors the Platform Team concept in Team Topologies, which supports stream-aligned teams by providing and maintaining useful platforms.
Continuous Improvement and Adaptability - My talks and writings stress the importance of continuous learning and adaptability within teams, reflecting the dynamic team evolution advocated by Team Topologies to respond effectively to changing business needs.
