So you want to migrate to Kubernetes: observations from a software developer

Common justifications include better scalability, cost savings, standardization and being super modern and stuff. It’s the future!

In my personal experience, Kubernetes is far from the magical uptime machine that a lot of people think it is, and migrating it to it comes with a lot of hidden costs and potential downtime.

I’m not a Kubernetes expert, but I’ve been involved in a few Kubernetes migration projects and I have opinions. Here are all the learnings and observations that I’ve personally witnessed.

Assumptions will be made, estimates communicated and then the work begins. 90% of the migration will likely go relatively smoothly, but the last 10% will result in the migration project blowing past any initial estimates that you had.

There will always be those teams and services that require more time due to conflicting priorities or unexpected technical nuances popping up during testing.

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