I passed CKAD exam!

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0100

After weeks of preparing, I finally passed the CKAD exam. CKAD consists of 16-20 hands-on tasks. I’ve read that time management is the most important thing on this exam. I have to agree with that.

How did I prepare?

Firstly, I started with Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) by Mumshad Mannambeth on Udemy. There I realized how K8s works in general. Later I read “The Kubernetes Book” by Nigel Poulton to keep an eye on the details. In the meantime I started to set up my own Talos Linux K8s cluster, and experimented there, but this is a story for a separate post. Eventually, I ended up with “Ultimate Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Mock Exam Series” on KodeKloud and I put effort into doing hands-on labs. I wasn’t aware it wasn’t my final boss yet. I did every KodeKloud mock exam twice. My scores were high enough so I was happy. It was time to book my exam. It would be in two weeks. More than enough. Only after that I remembered that I still had two attempts on killer.sh. I started doing my first attempt. My surprise was huge. Tasks were much harder than KodeKloud ones. Or maybe not harder at all, but more time-consuming. I had to pay attention to more details in one task. When I was doing KodeKloud mock exams, I always had some time left (about 20-30 minutes, depending on the test). Killer.sh was different. I had 10 minutes left and still hadn’t resolved every task. I felt like I was struggling. I didn’t pass my first attempt. And after that I realized what I had written earlier was right - time management. Of course, I’ve heard that the real exam is a little easier than killer.sh. But it didn’t convince me. I decided not to study more, and instead decided to manage my time better. I spent the next two weeks doing my regular things, and then…

Certifications on Łukasz Siedlecki

I passed CKAD exam!

How did I prepare?