Move an EdTech Platform's 4 Clusters to GitOps with ArgoCD
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Move an EdTech Platform's 4 Clusters to GitOps with ArgoCD. Intermediate challenge in design. Designing real products under real constraints, earn a blockcha...
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Replace laptop-driven kubectl operations with a self-managing, audited ArgoCD GitOps platform across four clusters, migrating all 22 running services without downtime or undetected drift.
This is not a design exercise. It is the work a product designer does between a brief and a shipped interface. That distinction matters to every hiring manager who has seen candidates redesign Spotify's homepage and none who have worked under real product constraints.
When you finish, you will have something most graduates do not: a real-world deliverable, verified by Ewance, that you can show to a hiring manager and say "I did this. Here is the proof."
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Design an ArgoCD repository and ApplicationSet topology that scales to new clusters without structural rework.
- Apply the App-of-Apps pattern to bootstrap ArgoCD so it manages itself from a single Git source of truth.
- Plan a safe, evidence-based migration from imperative kubectl to declarative GitOps using shadow sync and drift verification.
- Translate an organizational team-to-cluster mapping into least-privilege RBAC backed by single sign-on.
- Write operator documentation precise enough to drive rollback and disaster recovery without the author present.
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Argocd
Apply argocd to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Kubernetes
Apply kubernetes to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Kustomize
Apply kustomize to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Gitops
Apply gitops to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- App Of Apps
Apply app of apps to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Rbac Design
Apply rbac design to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Platform Engineer
This challenge mirrors a core platform-team mandate: standing up GitOps from scratch and migrating a live service fleet onto it. You leave able to design ArgoCD topologies, run safe cutovers, and document operations for a team that did not build the system.
This challenge sharpens
- argocd
- gitops
- kubernetes
Site Reliability Engineer
Reliability work hinges on repeatable, auditable change and tested recovery paths. By proving drift-free migration and writing executable rollback and disaster-recovery procedures, you practice exactly the discipline these roles assess in interviews and on the job.
This challenge sharpens
- gitops
- kubernetes
- app-of-apps
DevOps Engineer
These roles expect fluency in declarative infrastructure and access control across environments. Designing Kustomize overlays and least-privilege role-based access against an identity provider builds the multi-environment delivery skills employers hire for.
This challenge sharpens
- kustomize
- rbac-design
- argocd