Cloud Native Computing Foundation Announces Launch of Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Exam

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – May 2, 2018 – KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe – The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which sustains and integrates open source technologies like Kubernetes® and Prometheus™, today announced public availability of the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) exam and corresponding Kubernetes for Developers course.

The CNCF is continuing to invest heavily in training and certification opportunities for individuals working with cloud native technologies. After a successful launch last year of the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam with more than 1,500 registrants to date, the CNCF is expanding certification offerings to include application developers. More than 700 developers have already signed up to beta testers the CKAD exam. The CKAD exam is now publically available for anyone to take and costs $300.

The CKAD exam certifies that users can design, build, configure, and expose cloud native applications on top of Kubernetes. A Certified Kubernetes Application Developer can define application resources and use core primitives to build, monitor, and troubleshoot scalable applications and tools in Kubernetes.

“As Kubernetes has grown, so has the demand for application developers who are knowledgeable about building on top of Kubernetes,” said Dan Kohn, Executive Director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. ”The CKAD exam allows developers to certify their proficiency in designing and building cloud native applications for Kubernetes, while also allowing companies to confidently hire high-quality teams.”

With the majority of container-related job listings asking for proficiency in Kubernetes as an orchestration platform, the CKAD program will help expand the pool of Kubernetes experts in the market, thereby enabling continued growth across the broad set of organizations using the technology. According to Indeed.com, as of March 2018, there were approximately 6,325 job postings for software engineer jobs for every million jobs listed on Indeed.com. Over the last year, 2% of all job postings for software engineer jobs listed on the job search site listed Kubernetes as a skill within job descriptions for that role. The 2017 Linux Foundation and Dice Open Source Jobs Report found that cloud skills are the most in demand by hiring managers, with half of hiring managers stating they prefer to hire candidates with certifications. The exam is a key step in that process, allowing certified application developers to quickly establish their credibility and value in the job market, and also allowing companies to more quickly hire high-quality teams to support their growth.

CNCF, in partnership with The Linux Foundation, is also launching the Kubernetes for Developers (LFD259) online course on May 15. Registration is now open for the $299 course, which teaches how to containerize, host, deploy, and configure an application in a multi-node cluster. The course includes hands on labs, providing students with real world examples to aid in learning and understanding of concepts taught. The topics covered are directly aligned with the knowledge domains tested by the CKAD Program, and will substantially increase students’ ability to become certified.

For those interested in taking the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer Exam, you can learn more here.

Additional Resources

• Kubernetes Training Partner (KTP)
• Kubernetes Certified Service Providers (KCSP)
• Free Introduction to Kubernetes Course (LFS158)
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Exam
• Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Exam
• CKAD Beta Announcement

About Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Cloud native computing uses an open source software stack to deploy applications as microservices, packaging each part into its own container, and dynamically orchestrating those containers to optimize resource utilization. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of cloud native software stacks, including Kubernetes and Prometheus. CNCF serves as the neutral home for collaboration and brings together the industry’s top developers, end users and vendors – including the world’s largest public cloud and enterprise software companies as well as dozens of innovative startups. CNCF is part of The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization. For more information about CNCF, please visit www.cncf.io.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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The Linux Foundation

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