Not Understanding Services
Services are the core of Kubernetes — avoiding this part really makes life harder. One time I just read an article about how services in Kubernetes work, then everything clicked. Try to understand what NodePort, LoadBalancer, and ClusterIP are. It saves you a lot of headache down the road.
Avoiding Docs
I'm curious how senior SREs understand everything. I always preferred videos or tutorials, but that's not how it works. Reading docs will make everything clearer. Docs explain everything you need to know — except how to deploy with GitOps principles. That part you'll have to learn from the community.
Not Asking How People Manage Helm in Prod
There's no helm install in production. Production usually practices the GitOps principle — you need to have the chart in your repo and customize it, often for cost saving reasons. The pros use GitOps basically for better audit trails and more controlled deployments.
Tutorial Hell
I had one tutorial course where the Kubernetes section alone took 60 days to complete — and it wasn't production-style. In prod, everything is defined declaratively using YAML. CKA-based content is more imperative, using commands, which is good for understanding concepts but doesn't reflect real workflows.
Every video was almost 1 hour long, and I didn't retain much after finishing. The best approach is to rewatch and get your hands dirty. Don't expect to master it in one day per video — that's not realistic, and that's okay.
After learning every concept, you need to pick up applications that are deployed in Kubernetes — such as Grafana, Wazuh, and Ingress. That's another story. And then there's Kustomize for managing files across different environments.