In this episode, Derek interviews Ruben De Vries, a platform engineer in the telecom industry. They discuss various topics including Ruben's journey in the tech field, the importance of continuous learning, and the challenges of managing stateful workloads on Kubernetes. They also touch on the benefits of contributing to open source projects and the use of load testing tools for server performance. In this conversation, Derek and Ruben discuss various topics related to platform engineering, startups, and working in larger companies. They talk about the challenges of transitioning from a startup to a different model, such as a larger company. Ruben shares his experience with backstage and platform engineering, highlighting the learning curve and the desire to deploy backstage. They also discuss the importance of maintaining databases and not worrying about when backstage was released. The conversation touches on the different environments in which they thrive and the politics involved in earning trust in a larger company. They also talk about the success metrics for a platform engineer and the significance of security in DevSecOps.