Certified Kubernetes Application Developer

As part of my educational leave I wanted to do a couple of certifications. Last Friday I then took my first exam: The one to become a “Certified Kubernetes Application Developer”. I’ve been developing applications that run on Kubernetes and also extensions to Kubernetes itself using custom controllers/operators for a couple of years now but mostly for non-public projects. Now I also wanted to have something that I could put into my CV, though, so that I can proof having a certain degree of expertise in that area.

While I already have lots of experience working with k8s, I also wanted to do that certification properly and so I also attended an online-course hosted by the Linux Foundation that’s supposed to prepare me for the exam. Once I was through with all the learning material I registered for the certification exam to be held online.

The exam itself was a bit different from others I’ve taken in the path: There was not a single theoretical question! Instead, I got 19 tasks to complete on a set of Kubernetes clusters and 2 hours. I was really pleasantly surprised by the way the exam was conducted. With certifications like the one for the Certified Google Cloud Architect I did last year, most if not everything is theoretical. You get basically a handful of scenarios and then have to answer questions in a multiple-choice test. The Kubernetes-one was exactly the opposite! 19 tasks doesn’t sound like much but with re-checking my solutions it took me exactly these available time! I was so nervous that I didn’t really check if there as some kind of button I had to click in order to mark a task as completed apart from the one which allowed me to move to the next task 😆

About 30 hours later I then got the results: Turns out, there wasn’t such a checkbox/complete-button with every task after all! Well, somehow I most have gotten a score of 93% 😅 Now I can call myself a “Certified Kubernetes Application Developer” 🥳