PaaS (Platform as a Service) is a cloud computing model in which a provider offers a ready-to-use platform to deploy and run applications, without the team having to manage servers, the operating system or the runtime environment.
The developer pushes their code and the platform handles the rest: installing dependencies, deployment, scaling, certificates, basic monitoring. The provider manages everything beneath the application; the customer remains responsible for their code and data.
PaaS sits between IaaS, where you manage your own virtual machines, and SaaS, where you use finished software. Examples: Heroku, Google App Engine, Render, and in France Clever Cloud and Scalingo.
Its strengths: starting fast and focusing on the product, without an operations team. Its limits: less control, costs that can climb with traffic, and a risk of vendor lock-in.
Why it matters when hiring
A startup on a PaaS can go a long time without a dedicated DevOps profile: a good back-end developer is enough. The need for a DevOps or Platform Engineer emerges when the PaaS limits start to bite (costs, control, compliance). That is often the moment to hire someone who has already led a migration to a more controlled infrastructure.