GCP Cloud Developer Exam Preparation Guide | Generated by AI
Question: How to prepare for GCP’s Professional Cloud Developer exam?
Answer:
Here is a realistic, up-to-date preparation plan for the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Developer certification (as of early 2026).
1. Understand the Exam (most important first step)
- Duration: 2 hours
- Format: ~50–60 questions (mostly case-study based scenario questions + some direct knowledge questions)
- Passing score: ~70% (not officially published, but widely reported)
- Cost: $200 USD
- Languages: English + some others
- Official exam guide is the single most important document — read it completely at least twice
Official exam guide → https://cloud.google.com/learn/certification/guides/cloud-developer
Main sections in 2025–2026 (still very similar to previous years):
- Designing highly scalable, available, and reliable cloud-native applications (~20–25%)
- Building and testing applications (~20–25%)
- Deploying applications (~20–25%)
- Integrating Google Cloud services (~15–20%)
- Managing application performance monitoring (~10–15%)
Key services & products that appear very frequently:
- App Engine (standard & flexible), Cloud Run, Cloud Functions (1st & 2nd gen)
- Kubernetes Engine (GKE Autopilot & Standard) — quite important
- Artifact Registry, Cloud Build, Cloud Deploy
- Cloud SQL, Firestore, Cloud Spanner, Bigtable, Memorystore
- Pub/Sub, Eventarc, Cloud Tasks, Cloud Scheduler
- Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, Cloud Trace, Cloud Profiler, Error Reporting
- Secret Manager, IAM (service accounts, least privilege), KMS
- VPC, Cloud Load Balancing, Cloud CDN (basic understanding)
2. Recommended Study Sequence (≈ 8–16 weeks depending on experience)
| Weeks | Focus | Main Resources | Hands-on Goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | GCP fundamentals + core developer services | Google Cloud Skills Boost “Cloud Developer learning path”, official docs | Finish ~8–12 labs |
| 3–5 | Application design, scaling, databases, messaging | Qwiklabs / Skills Boost quests, Coursera “Developing Applications with Google Cloud” | Build 3–4 small projects |
| 6–8 | CI/CD, deployment, observability | Cloud Build + Cloud Run labs, GKE labs, monitoring labs | Deploy real CI/CD pipeline |
| 9–11 | Deep case-study practice + weak areas | Whizlabs / SkillCertPro / Udemy practice exams | 400–600 practice questions |
| 12–14 | Full timed mock exams + review wrong answers | 4–6 full timed practice exams | Score consistently >75–80% |
3. Best Resources in 2025–2026
Free & Official
- Google Cloud Skills Boost: “Professional Cloud Developer” learning path (~35–40 labs/quests)
- Google Cloud documentation – especially “Best practices” sections
- Sample questions on the official certification page
Paid but High Quality
- Whizlabs Professional Cloud Developer course + practice tests (very popular in 2024–2025)
- Udemy – “Google Professional Cloud Developer” by “The Cloud & DevOps Guy” or similar 2025-updated courses
- SkillCertPro / ExamTopics / Test-King — large question banks (use for practice only, not memorization)
Books
- “Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Developer” by some community authors (O’Reilly or Amazon) — mostly useful for explanations, not primary resource
Communities
- Reddit: r/googlecloud (search “PCD passed” threads from 2024–2025)
- Medium articles: search “passed Professional Cloud Developer 2024/2025”
4. Quick Preparation Tips from Recent Passers
- You must do hands-on — theory alone usually fails
- Know differences very well: App Engine std vs flex vs Cloud Run vs GKE vs Cloud Functions
- Understand event-driven architecture deeply (Pub/Sub + Cloud Run/Functions/Eventarc)
- Service accounts, IAM conditions, and Secret Manager appear in almost every case study
- Know when not to use serverless (stateful, low-latency, GPU, custom runtimes → GKE)
- Practice reading long case studies quickly and eliminating obviously wrong choices
5. One-Month Crash Plan (if you’re already experienced)
- Read official exam guide deeply (2–3 times)
- Do all labs in Cloud Developer learning path on Skills Boost
- Finish 400–500 practice questions (Whizlabs / Udemy)
- Take 4 full timed practice exams → analyze every wrong answer
- Book exam when scoring >78% consistently
Good luck — it’s very achievable with focused hands-on practice!
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