CNCF Adds Additional Cloud Native Certifications
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 conference today made two platform engineering certificates designed for IT professionals specializing in cloud-native applications in addition to launching a Golden Kubestronaut initiative that recognizes IT professionals that have attained all 13 of the certificates offered by the consortium along with a Linux certificate administered directly by The Linux Foundation.
The Cloud Native Platform Engineering Associate exam is available now, with the Cloud Native Platform Engineering certificate, which requires the ability to demonstrate hands-on expertise and is still being developed.
The Golden Kubestronaut program is an extension of a certificate recognition initiative that the CNCF launched last year to recognize individuals who have attained five certificates. Thus far, more than 1,500 IT professionals have been recognized.
Golden Kubestronauts gain exclusive benefits such as branded gear, a ThriveOne subscription for continued professional development, and ongoing discounts on CNCF certifications that they can pass on to colleagues. Additionally, they receive a free annual ticket to a Kubernetes Community Day (KCD) of their choice and 50% off KubeCon registration for life. A total of 23 IT professionals have already become Golden Kubestronauts.
Christophe Sauthier said that while there is significant overlap between Kubernetes and platform engineering certificates, the latter is more of a role spanning multiple technologies employed within an IT organization. In contrast, Kubernetes certificates are designed to show expertise using a specific platform.
There is now a clear need for both types of certificates, especially as IT environments become more complex, noted Sauthier. Platform engineering certificates will also become more relevant as IT organizations rely more on artificial intelligence (AI) agents to manage specific tools and platforms, he added.
It’s not clear how many IT professionals will ever qualify to become a Golden Kuberstronaut, but interest in platform engineering as a methodology for managing software engineering at scale is rising sharply. Many of those efforts have, at their core, an instance of Kubernetes that makes it simpler to build and deploy applications across a heterogeneous IT environment.
Each IT professional will need to determine the value of attaining a certificate. While they don’t guarantee an IT professional will get hired, they do help human resources professionals identify potential hiring candidates. There is, of course, no shortage of cloud-native certificates, including recent updates announced today by the CNCF. They include the availability of a Cloud Native Certified Associate certificate, and a new joint Certified Open Developer on the Enterprise (CODE) initiative with the Linux Foundation, the TODO community that enables organizations to build open source program offices, and the Open Source Initiative (OSI), to create a certification to provide enterprise developers with the training that defines a set of best practices for contributing to open source projects.
Regardless of what type of certificate is attained, the challenge, of course, is maintaining them as technologies continue to evolve and, in some cases, supersede them. In that sense, being an IT professional is, almost by definition, a lifetime commitment to learning.
