Bart
In this episode of The Landscape, I got a chance to speak with Cortney Nickerson, who recently became a CNCF Ambassador. After working on different initiatives in the cloud-native world for the last several years, Cortney now works as a Developer Advocate at Kubeshop on the Testkube team. She also gives talks and organizes meetups with fellow CNCF Ambassador Hawkeye Tirado in Bilbao, in northern Spain. This episode is brought to you by OVHcloud, the global cloud provider offering industry-leading performance and cost-effective solutions, from managed Kubernetes to private registries. Now, let’s dive into the episode with Cortney.

Cortney
I’m Cortney Nickerson, a Developer Advocate for Testkube, a project by Kubeshop.

Bart
Congratulations on becoming a CNCF Ambassador! What’s your area of focus as an ambassador, and how did you come into the role?

Cortney
I’m honored to join the amazing CNCF Ambassador team, though I’m not quite sure how I got here! My work is spread across community efforts, and I’m especially excited about joining the BIPOC group, which supports Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. I grew up near the Navajo reservation, and my parents’ house is only ten minutes from a place with no cell service. I’m passionate about seeing more Native American and Indigenous representation in tech, as well as diversity in general—it’s something we need to prioritize.

Bart
What other contributions to the CNCF ecosystem helped you become an ambassador?

Cortney
I help organize the CNCF Bilbao meetup. I don’t do most of the organizing, but I give talks when there’s an opening and, of course, put up with working with Bart, which might deserve some merit! I’m also involved with Kubernetes Community Days (KCD) events, and I especially love helping with the events in Pakistan, led by Syed Afridi, who’s an incredible community leader. I pitch in for KCD Spain events, too, as needed.

Bart
What are a few CNCF projects you’re particularly excited about?

Cortney
I’m really excited about Cilium. It’s a buzzword lately, but it’s great to see more emphasis on network security and policies. I’m hopeful that Cilium’s popularity will drive more attention to security projects like KubeArmor. Security is becoming a top priority across the board, which is great for all of us in Kubernetes.

Bart
You’re very involved in platform engineering. What trends or topics in that area are you most excited about?

Cortney
Platform engineering is booming, and it’s fascinating to see the focus on creating products with an internal service mindset. Teams are realizing they need to listen to their users (developers) more closely and design with them in mind. Human aspects—like communication and relationships—are often the biggest barriers to fast production cycles, more than the technical hurdles. I think platform engineering’s focus on addressing these human elements is what will keep it growing.

Bart
Tell me about the talk you gave at KubeCon. You were on a panel—what was the topic?

Cortney
Yes, I spoke at eBPF + Cilium Day. I was on a panel discussing use cases for eBPF and Cilium, and how teams are using these technologies day-to-day. We covered topics like the business implications of extensive tracing and network observability, the costs, and best practices for network security. It was a great discussion—it’s recorded, so I encourage people to check it out.

Bart
Thanks, Cortney. If people want to get in touch, what’s the best way?

Cortney
You can find me on the CNCF Slack, the Kubernetes Slack, or in the Testkube community Slack, where I’m very active. I’m also on BlueSky and X at @TechTalking.

Bart
Great! Thanks again, Cortney.