Kubernetes v1.36 Drops April 22: What Platform Engineers Actually Need to Know

TL;DR: Kubernetes v1.36 releases April 22, 2026. The headline features are DRA GPU partitioning, workload-aware preemption for AI/ML jobs, and the permanent removal of the gitRepo volume plugin. Ingress-nginx is also officially retired. If you run AI inference workloads or care about cluster security, this release is not optional reading. Why This Release Matters More Than Most The CNCF's 2025 annual survey dropped a number that stopped a lot of people mid-scroll: 66% of organizations hosting ge