- Added `SchedulerPopFromBackoffQ` feature gate that is in beta and enabled by default. Improved scheduling queue behavior by popping pods from the backoffQ when the activeQ is empty. This allows to process potentially schedulable pods ASAP, eliminating a penalty effect of the backoff queue. ([#130772](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/130772), [@macsko](https://github.com/macsko)) [SIG Scheduling and Testing]

- Ensured that non-scheduling related errors (e.g., network errors) did not lengthen the Pod scheduling backoff time. ([#128748](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/128748), [@sanposhiho](https://github.com/sanposhiho)) [SIG Scheduling and Testing]

- Added RuntimeClass restrictions and defaulting to PodSecurityPolicy. ([#73795](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/73795), [@tallclair](https://github.com/tallclair))
- Kubelet plugin registration now has retry and exponential backoff logic for when registration of plugins (such as CSI or device plugin) fail. ([#73891](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/73891), [@taragu](https://github.com/taragu))

 - Fixed a 1.18 regression in wait.Forever that skips the backoff period on the first repeat ([#90476](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/90476), [@zhan849](https://github.com/zhan849)) [SIG API Machinery]

- github.com/alecthomas/kingpin/v2: [v2.3.2 → v2.4.0](https://github.com/alecthomas/kingpin/compare/v2.3.2...v2.4.0)
- github.com/cenkalti/backoff/v4: [v4.2.1 → v4.3.0](https://github.com/cenkalti/backoff/compare/v4.2.1...v4.3.0)
- github.com/cespare/xxhash/v2: [v2.2.0 → v2.3.0](https://github.com/cespare/xxhash/compare/v2.2.0...v2.3.0)

- Failed pods associated with a job with `parallelism = 1` are recreated by the job controller honoring exponential backoff delay again. However, for jobs with `parallelism > 1`, pods might be created without exponential backoff delay. ([#115021](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115021), [@nikhita](https://github.com/nikhita)) [SIG Apps]

- Fixed a situation when, sometimes, the scheduler incorrectly placed a pod in the `unschedulable` queue instead of the `backoff` queue. This happened when some plugin previously declared the pod as `unschedulable` and then in a later attempt encounters some other error. Scheduling of that pod then got delayed by up to five minutes, after which periodic flushing moved the pod...

  * Support the Service spec's sessionAffinity ([#45523](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/45523), [@colemickens](https://github.com/colemickens))

	* Added exponential backoff to Azure cloudprovider ([#46660](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/46660), [@jackfrancis](https://github.com/jackfrancis))

- Failed pods associated with a job with `parallelism = 1` are recreated by the job controller honoring exponential backoff delay again. However, for jobs with `parallelism > 1`, pods might be created without exponential backoff delay. ([#115022](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115022), [@nikhita](https://github.com/nikhita)) [SIG Apps]

  - Serve from cache for the whole period of ongoing throttling
  - Fix unwanted VMSS VMs cache invalidation
  - Enforce setting the number of retries if cloud provider backoff is enabled
  - Don't update capacity if VMSS provisioning state is updating
  - Support allocatable resources overrides via VMSS tags
  - Add missing stable labels in template nodes