How much experience do you need for a Kubernetes job?

How much experience do you need for a Kubernetes job?

Analysing our Q3 2022 jobs data in order to derive a few key patterns for experience requirements listed in Kubernetes job listings.

78% of the jobs that mention experience specified senior-level experience!

How many years of experience equates to senior-level experience? What about junior roles? Do most of the companies mention experience requirements?

Let's try to answer some of the above questions (and perhaps more) with Kube Careers job listings data for Q3 2022 (July to September).

Before you read further, know that:

  • At Kube Careers, we only include job listings with a clear salary range and which have Kubernetes as a requirement and not a nice to have/plus.

  • Our dataset is small, with 86 job listings from July to September 2022.

How much experience do companies seek?

In this quarter, only 27% of the jobs mentioned an experience requirement such as senior, mid-level or junior.

Work experience mentioned in job descriptions

Was this metric any different in Q3 2021?

Slightly.

In the same quarter last year, almost 40% of the job listings mentioned an explicit experience requirement.

Work experience mentions in job descriptions (year-on-year)

Of the ones that mention experience, what is the polarity?

From the numbers, it's undeniable what the companies are looking for: Senior-level experience.

This quarter, of the job listings that mention experience, 78% mentioned senior-level (4-6 years) experience.

The mid-level (2-3 years) experience came in at 17%, and a distant third was the veteran level (7+ years) experience at 4%.

And sadly, there wasn't a single mention of a junior-level (0-1 years) experience in our listings for this quarter.

Work experience preference

What was the trend in Q3 2021?

Wasn't very different.

Commonalities between the two quarters and takeaways for us:

  1. Senior-level (4-6 years) experience is the most sought-after.

  2. Junior-level roles are very scarce!

  3. Veteran-level (7+ years) experience is scarce too! (I guess we all knew that)

Did you like what you read?

Click here if you'd like to read our detailed job trends report for Q3 2022, which includes salary ranges, popular technologies, popular skills listed in job descriptions, and much more.