The format

Some exams are just filled with facts. To me, grasping concepts is what matters. Exact details one can look up, like one does in professional life: Not verifying details, that are easy to verify, is not a flex.

Looking back at for example AWS Solutions Architect Associate: For me it has been one third learning, one third facts I forgot straight away, and one third facts that are probably outdated because of the never-ending stream of service updates³. That’s two third being facts one can and should look up anyway. Make no mistake: I learned things, and the one third that sticks has value. Just the overall experience I don’t find very satisfying.

However, the performance-based exams, such as CKA and CKS gave me a much better impression: One needs to have a decent understanding of the topic, and the exam might include some actual troubleshooting. Furthermore there is the ability to look up examples and command line flags so the exam format is much closer to reality.

The learning

While studying one exam after another, I noticed some parallels with a game I used to play: Ingress. Let me explain.

Ingress is a geomobile game, a predecessor to Pokemon Go. You go outside, walk around and play. Part of the game is the ability to do a mission, usually walking around and hacking a specific set of portals in order. Completing the mission grants you a badge. Multiple mission badges might form a banner.

Let’s take this banner I did at some point in Helsinki, as a metaphor:

So, when abroad for a business or city trip, it’s very tempting to go out and complete a banner. The good thing is: The banner creates an incentive to go out and explore, and running into fellow players (the community!). The banner might even take you to places you otherwise wouldn’t have visited.

But there are downsides as well: Everything tends to become focused on completing the banner. Instead of looking around and absorbing the atmosphere, one is looking at its cell phone, figuring out where the next portal is. Casually ending up at a nice spot? Bummer, need to move on, train is leaving in an hour and there are badges to complete.

Studying exams tends to be a bit like that. It’s prescriptive and linear. There is no creativity, no ‘identifying of problems to solve’. The focus shifts from exploring to time management. Instead of wondering how to get the most out of an afternoon in Helsinki, the process becomes: Choose a banner that’s doable in an afternoon. Follow the path, rinse and repeat.

The visibility

Another similarity to Ingress is that the banners themselves become the talking point. Instead of talking about where to find the best korvapuusti (a cinnamon roll) in Helsinki, the topic becomes: What banners are you planning to do? In a way the banners can become a distraction to the experience.

Finally: Some players in Ingress are just crazy: If you happen to capture a portal at night they consider ‘theirs’, they get out of their bed, into their car, drive out, and capture it back.

Now there is nothing wrong with dedication and being fanatic. The point is: There will always be other players with more badges, who get them faster, who spend more time, have more points, and be more vocal about it. That’s ok, and it can be inspiring! But it can also become a rat race one gets caught up in, perhaps losing the ability to enjoy and appreciate one’s own journey.

Certification: Not terrible!

Now the previous might come across as a bit critical to certificates. I think it just illustrates that certificates can be a valuable part of the package, as long as they don’t become the package. They can help getting you into a conversation, but after that their value quickly dissipates.

Let’s highlight some good parts of certification:

Objective

We live in times where AI is able to generate very convincing content. Whether it’s social media posts, open source contributions, or even one’s homelab repository: It becomes increasingly hard to distinguish ‘just talk’ from ‘also walk’. Even hiring interviews, albeit remote, are not immune to ‘AI augmentation’.

Think what you will about certification, but that fact alone makes certifications unlikely to go anywhere soon.

Study path

Some topics lend themselves to explore via a homelab or pet project, or by contributing to an open source project. But it requires coming up with an idea first, or find a suitable ‘first issue’, so there might be a bit of a barrier. And, when having passed that barrier, you might find yourself deep diving into parts of a topic, while skipping others.

When looking at learning from that perspective, the aforementioned linear nature of certificate study, has an upside as well: It is easy to ‘just start’ and the curriculum will make sure you at least touch various topics at a basic level.

Furthermore, there are certifications, like CISSP, that are not technical. There simply is no pet project for that subject matter.

Scalable

Recruiters might filter resumes on certificates because it’s so easy to measure. It scales. I can’t say I particularly endorse this gatekeeping aspect of certification, but it is what it is. And, trying to apply a ‘glass half-full approach’, when having certificates, this scaling can benefit candidates as well and more easily get you noticed.

Show of dedication

Dedication and motivation comes in many forms, and studying is one of them. While mostly theoretical, so probably best balanced by more hands-on ways of learning, it is a way of learning. And the time it takes is real.

Breaking into tech

If trying to land your first job in tech, you might not have existing work to show. Certification might help, but choose wisely, you can spend your money and time only once.

For example: Spend $100 on a refurbished mini PC, or a couple of years worth of Hetzner VMs, then slap on ArgoCD, turn it inside out, while coding and posting about your learnings. That might very well be money better spent, than the GitOps Associate exam.

Balance probably is key here. If also demonstrating hands-on ability, then certification might help with the aforementioned scalability, and put some additional visibility on the dedication one has.

Tariffs

Whether you are a freelance professional, or work for a consultancy company, tariffs need to be negotiated. Referrals can help. But even then: Being a great dependable team player, one of most important qualities to have, can still be hard to price into a higher tariff.

CNCF adoption in corporates

Big companies are risk averse. They happily pay vendors or training centers large sums of money to be able to choose paved paths. Can we buy ‘premium support’? Can we hire trained people? The classic “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”⁴.

While Kubernetes itself can be considered pretty much established, the entire CNCF landscape is not there yet. Big vendors such as AWS, Microsoft all have certification programs and partner programs, that allow corporates to buy off risk.

Certification, as well as the project governance by the CNCF, will help in putting open source solutions on the map of big, risk-averse organizations.

The Golden Kubestronaut program

When looking at the Kubestronaut program, one can observe a clear trajectory:

• Kubestronaut: Focuses on the core itself, deeply understanding Kubernetes, culminating in the CKS exam.
• Golden Kubestronaut: Advances into the wider ecosystem. The additional components one needs to turn Kubernetes into a usable platform, such as observability, policies and advanced networking.

Now, if looking at difficulty, the arc flattens a bit when going from Kubestronaut to Golden Kubestronaut. The sheer volume is the main challenge, but CKS I still find the hardest exam of the entire series. And if I had to recommend a single one, it would be CKS, hands down.

Interestingly, two exams are coming that might bend the flattened arc upwards a bit:

• Cloud Native Platform Engineer (CNPE). A hands-on exam, launched in November, and a requirement for Golden Kubestronaut starting March. 1st 2026. It is perceived as quite difficult by the first takers.
• Certified Kubernetes Network Engineer (CKNE). Not a lot is known yet, but it is announced to be a ‘practical exam’.

By the looks of it, those two will be worthy additions to the Golden Kubestronaut program, adding a bit more depth to the vast breadth.

The CNCF exams are not cheap at $250 for associate, and $445 for hands-on exams. So, there is a bit of a pay-to-win ring to it. But in their defence:

• There are bundles which reduce cost by about 10% when comparing to the individual exams
• Most importantly: There are occasional reductions of 50% and sometimes even 60%!
• Purchases are valid for a year. So you can buy during one of the reductions, even if studying does not fit your schedule immediately
• A re-take is included in case you fail the first attempt
• Most of the hands-on exams include two killer.sh practice exams, which are very valuable

The validity of two years is rather short, and sadly CNCF (nor AWS for that matter) offer the renewal procedure that Microsoft does.

It’s serious money one needs to budget, but from a CNCF perspective perhaps not the cash-grab some people claim it to be. Looking at the 2024 report, training makes up 7.5% of fundraising, although, given the very marketable Kubestronaut program, I expect this figure to be higher in 2025.

Finally, I can’t help but think Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS) would fit better in the regular Kubestronaut program. Linux is the foundation on top of which all other parts are built. Now it feels a bit like an afterthought.

What does it mean?

There are many, many ways to learn: Working in a team, colleagues and mentors, pet projects, contributing to open source, video courses, conference talks, attending meetups or conferences, fixing things at 2am and wondering how to prevent the next mishap.

More on the educating side of things, mentoring, training people, conducting workshops, speaking, writing, are ways of learning as well. And that is just professional life. Building character for a large part happens in personal life.

Each have their strong and weak points: A homelab is a great source of experimenting and learning, but doesn’t have the scale at which a lack of automation becomes painful. A video course, while informative, might not ‘click’ until one encounters the topic in professional life. Similarly, studying certification brings knowledge, but does not focus on the ability to explain things to non-technical stakeholders.

So, all of the above contribute to personal growth in different ways, and in that regard, certification is no different. But, let’s face it, certificates are a very visible component of personal branding. And that’s ok, but it probably attributes to their sometimes mixed response. The diagram in the ‘value’ section, in my opinion, illustrates the pitfall to avoid.

As I stated in my LinkedIn post, I see the Golden Kubestronaut title foremost as raising the bar of the professional that I aspire to be, and perhaps a bit as a display of dedication and perseverance.

If I visit a community event, for every certificate I now have, there will be people with deeper experience on that topic. Great people to learn from and talk to. And there will be people contributing a lot to the community. Nothing changed about that, and if anything, the title emphasizes the need to keep learning, and bring a balanced perspective into any conversation.

Would I recommend it? Sure! Read the above, and if you’re still enthusiastic, go for it! It’s rewarding and you will grow as a professional. But ultimately: Learning is key and certification is just one of the many learning paths. It is worth noting though, that I am well aware of being in a privileged position: To be able to consider certification a ‘nice to have’.

What stayed the same? The questions one asks, are often more interesting than the education one shows.

Thoughts? Don’t hesitate to find me on LinkedIn, BlueSky or CNCF Slack.