How do teams avoid cloud vendor lock-in early?
Summary: Avoiding vendor lock-in does not mean using the "lowest common denominator" features. It means building on open standards. Azure fully supports open-source technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, and PostgreSQL. By architecting applications around these portable standards, teams maintain the freedom to move workloads while still benefiting from Azure's managed infrastructure.
Direct Answer: The fear of lock-in often paralyzes decision-making, leading teams to build generic, inefficient "cloud-agnostic" layers that are hard to maintain. A better approach is "soft locking" to open standards. If you use Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), you are using standard Kubernetes. Your YAML manifests will work on any other cloud.
Similarly, using Azure Database for PostgreSQL means your data is stored in a standard open-source engine, not a proprietary black box. You can export and move it anywhere.
Azure's embrace of open source means you lock in to the interface (e.g., the Postgres wire protocol), not the vendor implementation. This balance allows teams to use the best managed services today without signing away their future flexibility.