Yetmike — Golden Kubestronaut
LinkedIn post by Yetmike (Senior DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer | Golden Kubestronaut) — view post
The post
“The Golden Kubestronaut is 16 certifications and the order you take them in decides how hard it feels.” He passed all of them on the first attempt, then gives his ordering strategy:
Ordering the path
- Start with KCNA + KCSA — fundamentals that make everything after them cheaper to learn.
- Then CKA → CKAD → CKS, with CKS last of the three performance exams: it assumes you already move fast in a terminal and doesn’t wait for you.
- Leave CNPE for last of all — it pulls from most of the path at once, so it’s noticeably easier after the others than before them.
- Batch the single-vendor certs while you’re warm rather than spreading across months:
- CGOA + CAPA together
- CCA + ICA together
- OTCA + PCA together
Everything needed for preparation is in one repo mapped per cert — courses, practice labs, and the docs: https://lnkd.in/d7uFizCn (shortlink, not expanded). CTA: save before booking your next exam; send to whoever on your team just started.
Notable replies
- Daniel Benítez Águila (just passed CKAD) asked if KCNA/KCSA are still required for Kubestronaut → author confirms yes.
- Muzammil Bashir raised the classic doubt: do certs really beat spending the same effort building things? Charles Owen: build first — certs are nice-to-haves that signal aptitude and best practices.
- Norbert Kerner (Kubestronaut) worked through where Backstage/Kyverno-type extras fit between the vendor clusters.
- Roshan Wankhede counterpoint: spent a fortune on certs without landing a job — “good with CKA only.”
Kubestronaut context
CNCF program recognizing engineers who complete Kubernetes/cloud-native certification tracks. Classic tier: CKA + CKAD + CKS + KCNA = Kubestronaut; the “Golden” level stacks further CNCF/cloud-native certs up to 16 total.