The story
TLDR: The title is a lie xD, in fact, I have spent about total 45-50 days.
From the beginning, I never think I will go for full Golden Kubestronaut certifications, I just had interest in field of Platform Engineering after viewing a demo what its capabilities, then I was aiming for 2 certifications which are Certified Backstage Associate (CBA) and Certified Cloud Native Platform Engineer (CNPE), but somehow I started thinking about full complete Golden Kubestronaut, it was affected by the following conditions:
- Cyber Week Promo (50% discount on any exams)
- While scrolling through LinkedIn, one of my connections shared a certification in a bundle of Golden Kube, which gave me extra motivation xD
- I have no idea what I will do in December 2025. I want to keep myself busy instead of spending every free evening time for gaming, short videos, drama...
- I want a target with clarified objectives to be achieved
The last condition is the most important, I guess, because with clear and detailed input/output, it should be a good task or objective. So I set a board with a task list of how many exams I need to pass to achieve that Golden Kubestronaut cert!
Progress for each exam
In the first week, I was really careful and serious, only scheduling after I felt confident about the exam. But from the second week, I was "YOLO" and forced my lazy ass to learn, just scheduled without preparing or feeling confident about the exam, haha.
01. Prometheus (PCA)
This is the exam that I underestimated, and I almost paid the price for being careless. I'm still thinking that this exam is easy. I have been working with Prometheus for a long time, and this should not be hard. But in fact, I didn't understand Prometheus well enough, like what the core metric types of Prometheus are, I'm not able to answer or explain that =.=!
Link to article - Prepare for PCA
02. Istio (ICA)
This is the second exam I failed to pass on the 1st try. My mistake was not checking the exam details carefully of the exam. I assumed this was quiz choices, and I only spent 1 day to prepare, and the result is failure for the 1st time for sure. Have to prepare and practice and lab, reschedule it for 3 days after 1st try!
Link to article - Prepare for ICA
03. Cilium (CCA)
This is the first exam I failed to pass on the 1st try. I failed because I didn't think the resource kind Gateway of K8S would appear in the exam (yeah, I'm a little outdated on K8S xD), and I was angry at myself.
Link to article - Prepare for CCA
04. Argo (CAPA)
Haha, I thought Argo Projects were just ArgoCD and Argo Rollouts before.
Link to article - Prepare for CAPA
05. Gitops (CGOA)
This was easy to pass.
Link to article - Prepare for CGOA
06. Backstage (CBA)
This is the first of the 2 certifications I did serious learning, which led to Golden Kubestronaut.
Link to article - Prepare for CBA
07. Opentelemetry (OTCA)
Opentelemetry is a vendor-neutral, tool for collecting telemetry data, including traces, metrics, and logs. I had fun with the basic traces and spans.
Link to article - Prepare for OTCA
08. Kyverno (KCA)
This is good to learn, even though I haven't used this in the past (same for CKS, attempt for the mindset increment, not certification itself)
Link to article - Prepare for KCA
09. Platform Engineer (CNPA)
This is the second of the 2 certifications I did serious learning, which led to Golden Kubestronaut.
Link to article - Prepare for CNPA
10. Linux Admin (LFCS)
I forgot some basics, this is a chance that forced me to re-learn xD
Link to article - Prepare for LFCS
The result
Here is the result (ummm, My handwriting is bad and ugly AF)
My personal rating and recommendation for each certification
Rating
This was just based on my personal experience:
- Prometheus (PCA): Medium
- Istio (ICA): Medium
- Cilium (CCA): Medium
- Argo (CAPA): Medium
- Gitops (CGOA): Easy
- Backstage (CBA): Medium
- Opentelemetry (OTCA): Medium
- Kyverno (KCA): Medium
- Platform Engineer (CNPA): Medium
- Linux Admin (LFCS): Easy
Recommendation
First and second, orders do not matter
- 1st: Prometheus, Argo, Gitops, Opentelemetry, Linux Admin, Istio, Cilium
- 2nd: Kyverno, Backstage
- 3rd: Platform Engineer
Conclusion
- What does it cost? A lot of fucking money!!!
- What does it gain? A big debt!!!
- This meme I could use whenever passing any certification LOL
