How Kubernetes Helps You Land a Cloud Engineer Job Faster

# Small practice cluster with eksctl (costs money — delete after use)
eksctl create cluster \
  --name practice \
  --region ap-south-1 \
  --nodegroup-name workers \
  --node-type t3.medium \
  --nodes 2 --nodes-min 1 --nodes-max 3 \
  --managed

aws eks update-kubeconfig --region ap-south-1 --name practice
kubectl get nodes -o wide
kubectl get pods -A
# When finished practising:
eksctl delete cluster --name practice --region ap-south-1

# Create a service account linked to an IAM role (IRSA)
eksctl utils associate-iam-oidc-provider --cluster practice --approve
eksctl create iamserviceaccount \
  --cluster practice --namespace default --name s3-reader \
  --attach-policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess \
  --approve
# Pods using serviceAccountName: s3-reader get temporary S3 read access

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: web
  annotations:
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/scheme: internet-facing
    alb.ingress.kubernetes.io/target-type: ip
spec:
  ingressClassName: alb
  rules:
    - http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service: { name: web, port: { number: 80 } }

# Needs metrics-server installed
kubectl top nodes
kubectl top pods -A --sort-by=cpu | head -15
kubectl get hpa -A
kubectl get pods -A --field-selector=status.phase=Pending

Monthly cluster cost review
1. Node count trend: stable / growing / shrinking
2. Average node CPU use vs requests
3. Pods with requests far above real usage
4. Workloads that could run on Spot capacity
5. Idle clusters or namespaces to remove
Owner: ______  Actions: ______

apiVersion: eksctl.io/v1alpha5
kind: ClusterConfig
metadata:
  name: practice
  region: ap-south-1
iam:
  withOIDC: true
managedNodeGroups:
  - name: workers
    instanceType: t3.medium
    minSize: 1
    desiredCapacity: 2
    maxSize: 3
    labels: { role: general }

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: web
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels: { app: web }
  template:
    metadata:
      labels: { app: web }
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: s3-reader
      containers:
        - name: web
          image: nginx:1.27
          ports: [{ containerPort: 80 }]
          resources:
            requests: { cpu: 100m, memory: 128Mi }

Practice session checklist
[ ] Budget alert active on the account
[ ] eksctl create cluster -f cluster.yaml
[ ] Deploy app, test ingress, test IAM access
[ ] Note what you learned in the project README
[ ] eksctl delete cluster -f cluster.yaml
[ ] Confirm no leftover load balancers or volumes