Certification Guide
Certified Kubernetes Administrator
The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) is a fully hands-on, live-terminal exam. You are given 15–20 tasks in a real Kubernetes cluster and must complete them under a 2-hour timer. It is the gold-standard credential for platform engineers and SREs — no multiple choice, no scenario reading, just kubectl.
Exam Code
CKA
Cost
$445 (includes one free retake)
Duration
120 minutes
Passing Score
66%
Validity
2 years
Vendor
Linux Foundation / CNCF
Difficulty
Professional
Salary Impact
$15K – $40K premium; near-mandatory for platform engineering roles
Who This Certification Is For
- Platform engineers running production Kubernetes
- SREs and DevOps engineers operating multi-cluster environments
- Backend engineers moving into infra roles at K8s-heavy companies
- Consultants supporting client Kubernetes rollouts
Exam Domains
What CKA actually tests, with weightings where the vendor publishes them:
- Cluster Architecture, Installation and Configuration (25%)
- Workloads and Scheduling (15%)
- Services and Networking (20%)
- Storage (10%)
- Troubleshooting (30%)
Study Path
An opinionated plan, in order. Timelines assume ~10 hours per week.
Week 1: Install kind or minikube locally; work through the official Kubernetes tutorials
Week 2–4: Mumshad Mannambeth's CKA course on Udemy — the de facto standard. Do every lab.
Week 5: killer.sh practice sessions (two free with your exam voucher). These are harder than the real exam.
Week 6: kubectl speed drills — you must be fluent in kubectl aliases, --dry-run=client, and vim. Time is the killer.
Week 7: Book the exam. Use the free retake if you fail — most people need it.
Top Employers That Value CKA
How HiringFunnel Uses Your CKA
CKA is a hard filter for platform engineering roles at cloud-native companies. HiringFunnel targets Kubernetes-heavy employers and surfaces roles where CKA is either required or the top differentiator in the requirements.
Have your CKA? Let it work for you.
HiringFunnel targets roles where your certification is a keyword filter — not a nice-to-have — and applies at scale in the background.
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