Three certifications sequenced to unlock the Senior Platform Engineer tier. Total commitment: ~170 study hours across ~6 months, and roughly $950 in exam fees for the three required certs. Each cert builds on the previous one — and every lab runs on your own live infrastructure, not a sandbox.
kubectl against a live cluster. Terraform (95% of JDs) follows immediately so
the cluster you just learned to operate becomes Terraform-managed. AWS SAP-C03
(89% of JDs, +$22–42K base) is now the bar — SAA-C03 alone is no longer enough.
FinOps is the optional fourth lane and has moved from "emerging" to
established.
The single highest-impact cert for the DevOps Platform Engineer tier.
100% of live postings require k8s production experience. The exam is a
2-hour hands-on lab — you actually run kubectl commands against a live cluster.
Your existing k3s cluster is the lab.
Q4 2026 update: K8s production is now table-stakes AND the gateway to the loudest 2026 hiring lane — AI/GPU infrastructure. OpenAI Fleet Infra SF ($230–490K + equity) and Anthropic Staff+ K8s Platform London both require deep scheduler/apiserver/etcd work. Build an extra lab: NVIDIA device plugin + a small GPU node, even if borrowed. The eBPF/Cilium + GPU scheduler combo is the new differentiator.
Pods, Deployments, Services · ConfigMaps, Secrets
Ingress, NetworkPolicies · PersistentVolumes, StorageClasses
StatefulSets, DaemonSets · Affinity, Taints, Tolerations
etcd backup/restore · Node maintenance, upgrades
ServiceAccounts, Roles · NetworkPolicies, PodSecurityStandards
kubectl debug, logs, events · 2× full mock exams
The de-facto standard for IaC. Sequencing matters here: take it right after CKA so the k8s cluster you just learned to operate becomes Terraform-managed. Much shorter prep than CKA — a 1-hour multiple-choice exam.
Q4 2026 update: OpenTofu v1.12 is now mainstream (~12% adoption, 27% evaluating; CNCF/Linux Foundation governance, MPL 2.0). The HashiCorp Terraform Associate cert still covers the same HCL/state/providers concepts and transfers directly to OpenTofu — so train Terraform, but pick OpenTofu for new internal tools to avoid HashiCorp BSL friction (esp. under IBM ownership). Drop-in compatible with Terraform 1.5+.
Providers, Resources, State · Variables, Outputs
Module composition · Remote state (S3/GCS)
AWS + GCP + Azure providers · Workspaces for env isolation
HashiCorp official practice exam · 3rd-party mock exams
Q4 2026 update: SAP-C03 is now the bar — SAA-C03 alone is no longer enough on its own. Take SAA-C03 as a prerequisite, then SAP-C03. Worth +$22–42K base. 3-hour exam with scenario-based questions. Senior AWS Solutions Architects in big-tech metros (Amazon L6) clear $290–360K TC; L7 Principal pushes $400K+ (levels.fyi, Oct 2026).
EC2, VPC, IAM, S3, RDS core · Skip if you have AWS experience
ALB + ASG + RDS multi-AZ · CloudFront + S3 + Lambda@Edge
Multi-region, Route53 failover · RTO/RPO, backup strategies
Direct Connect, Transit Gateway · RI/SP strategies, Cost Explorer
Tutorials Dojo practice exams (×4) · Steady bite-sized study
October 2026 update: FinOps has moved from "emerging" to "established" and is now the #1 cost-discipline hire (FinOps Foundation State of FinOps 2026: 80% of large enterprises run a dedicated function; only ~30K FOCP holders globally; senior band £110–150K UK / $175K US base). Pairs perfectly with AWS SAP — cost optimization is the #1 differentiator for platform engineers, and GenAI workloads are now driving 18% of cloud spend (up from 4% in 2023).
Cloud cost models, unit economics · FinOps lifecycle (Inform/Manage/Optimize)
RI/SP strategies, Savings Plans · Right-sizing, spot instances
Chargeback/showback for platform teams · Cost attribution in Backstage IDP
FinOps Foundation practice exam · 3rd-party mocks