Validate your platform engineering skills with the Certified Cloud Native Platform Engineering Associate (CNPA). Developed by the community, CNPA covers automation, security, and developer experience—ensuring you’re ready to support modern cloud native platforms. Get certified and stand out in today’s tech landscape!
Cost $250 | Online Exam
About the program
The Certified Cloud Native Platform Engineering Associate (CNPA) is a vendor-neutral certification developed by the CNCF and its community, designed to validate the foundational skills required for building, automating, and managing cloud native platforms at scale.
The CNPA is ideal for platform engineers, DevOps practitioners, SREs, cloud native developers, infrastructure architects, and IT professionals who want to prove their ability to design, operate, and optimize modern developer platforms.
Earning the CNPA will help you stand out by demonstrating your expertise in platform engineering fundamentals—including automation, security, observability, continuous delivery, and enhancing the developer experience with tools like Backstage. This certification positions you for success in a wide range of platform engineering, DevOps, and cloud native roles.
Earning a CNPA certification demonstrates:
- Your understanding of the core concepts and best practices in platform engineering, including automation, security, and scalability in the cloud native ecosystem.
- Your ability to support developer teams and deliver robust, reusable, and efficient cloud native platforms.
- You are prepared for roles such as platform engineer, SRE, DevOps engineer, or cloud native infrastructure specialist.
CNCF has open sourced the curriculum around which the KCA exam has been created to guide candidates’ exam preparation and for the benefit of companies offering training.CNCF offers wholesale pricing on our exams to training companies purchasing in bulk. For more information, please contact trainingpartners@cncf.io.
Exam details
This exam is an online, proctored, multiple-choice exam.
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| Platform Engineering Core Fundamentals | 36% |
| Platform Observability, Security, and Conformance | 20% |
| Continuous Delivery & Platform Engineering | 16% |
| Platform APIs and Provisioning Infrastructure | 12% |
| IDPs and Developer Experience | 8% |
| Measuring your Platform | 8% |
The cost is $250 and includes one free retake. For questions on the exam, please reach out.