Introduced PinConsole: Pinterest introduced PinConsole, a unified internal developer platform (IDP), to centralize engineering workflows. It was built to address the fragmented developer experience caused by multiple disconnected tools.

• Integrates Workflows: Integrates common developer workflows like continuous deployment pipelines, monitoring dashboards, alerting, and ownership metadata. Allows engineers to manage releases, access logs and metrics without switching tools.
• Designed with IDP Model: Inspired by Backstage, Kubernetes, and gRPC, it provides a consistent interface and standard workflows, promoting reuse and uniformity.

Supporting Technologies:

• Entity Data Model: Built an entity data model that syncs with LDAP directory every 60 minutes via Backstage’s ldapOrg provider for accurate ownership tracking and access control.
• Databases: Uses PostgreSQL databases on AWS RDS for production and staging.
• Customized Interface: Customized Pinconsole interface with Pinterest’s Gestalt design system.
• PinCompute Plugin: Provides a unified interface for managing Kubernetes workloads with custom resources like PinApps and PinScalers supported by a custom Kubernetes plugin. Supports multi-tenancy and integrates with security systems, service registry, and artifact repositories.

Scalability Optimizations:

• Apollo Client: Uses cache policies to proactively prefetch commonly accessed data.
• React.lazy and Suspense: Enables code splitting.
• Server-side Rendering: Renders critical pages server-side to improve time-to-first-meaningful-paint.
• Multi-level Caching: Reduces latency and enhances perceived performance by caching CDN assets and API gateway responses.