🗺️
Kubernetes Learning Roadmap
A structured path from Kubernetes beginner to CKA/CKAD/CKS certified engineer. Follow the phases in order — each builds on the last.
Estimated time:3–6 months to CKA+2 months for CKAD+3 months for CKS
1🌱
Phase 1 — Core Concepts
Pods & Containersfoundational
Deployments & ReplicaSetsfoundational
Services (ClusterIP/NodePort/LB)foundational
ConfigMaps & Secretsfoundational
Namespacesfoundational
kubectl CLI basicsmust learn
2⚙️
Phase 2 — Workloads
DaemonSets
StatefulSets
Jobs & CronJobs
Init Containers
Resource Requests & Limits
Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA)
3🌐
Phase 3 — Networking
DNS & Service Discovery
Ingress Controllers (nginx/traefik)
Network Policies
CNI Plugins (Calico/Flannel/Cilium)
Load Balancing
Service Mesh basics (Istio)advanced
4💾
Phase 4 — Storage
PersistentVolumes (PV)
PersistentVolumeClaims (PVC)
StorageClasses
Volume Types (emptyDir, hostPath, NFS)
CSI Drivers
StatefulSet storage patterns
5🔐
Phase 5 — Security
RBAC (Roles, Bindings, ServiceAccounts)
Pod Security Admission (PSA)
Secrets management (Vault, Sealed Secrets)
Network Policies (deny-all + allow-list)
Image scanning (Trivy/Snyk)important
OPA / Gatekeeperadvanced
6📊
Phase 6 — Observability
Loki (log aggregation)
Distributed tracing (Jaeger/Tempo)
Alertmanager rules
kubectl top / metrics-server
7🔄
Phase 7 — GitOps & CI/CD
ArgoCD GitOps workflow
Kustomize overlays
CI pipeline (GitHub Actions / GitLab)
Image promotion across envs
Rolling updates & canary deploymentsimportant
8🏅
Phase 8 — Certifications
CKA — Certified Kubernetes Administratorstart here
CKS — Certified Kubernetes Securityafter CKA
Practice exams (killer.sh)
Time management in examstip
KCNA — Kubernetes & Cloud Native Associate
Ready to start?
Begin with interview questions to assess your current level.