Cloud Certifications: GC Professional Cloud Developer

This guide provides information and resources to prepare for the GC Professional Cloud Developer certification. It also gives you some tips and recommendations based on the experiences of other cloud engineers and cloud developers who are certified in Google Cloud.

This certification has been prepared for app developers with at least two years of experience managing at least one general-purpose programming language (Python, Java, etc.) and technologies on Google Cloud.  If you have experience with the Kubernetes Engine, App Engine, and Compute Engine, then this certification is ideal for you. 

 The main reasons for obtaining this certification are:

• Validate your knowledge and experience managing apps in highly complex and demanding environments.
• Show your experience with GC technologies, both for your current employer and for future job searches.
• GC certifications are difficult, so obtaining one shows your colleagues that you have the capabilities to tackle complex projects.
• Every day there is a growing demand for certified engineers to participate in new initiatives and support digital transformation, and a cloud developer is essential here. 

To achieve this certification, you just have to pass the Professional Cloud Developer exam. This exam measures your ability to use GC technologies to implement high performance and availability apps, which must be scalable and secure, and built through platforms such as Kubernetes, App Engine, and virtual machines.  Your preparation for the exam should look like this:

• Get an overview of all GC technologies (although not all are covered in the exam, it is worth understanding what you can use and what restrictions you have).
• Take a subset of the technologies and study each one in detail (a list is mentioned later in this guide and they are on the exam agenda).
• Practice with these technologies from the GC console (you must have your GC account enabled).
• Install and practice creating the same resources and technologies using command line.  Remember that the key here is to look beyond the technologies separately, that is, how they connect with each other to offer an adequate service in each project.  

 There are no specific prerequisites, but it is ideal that people who are going to complete this certification have at least two to three years of experience working with cloud, and at least one year using GC, either through graphical interface (GC console) or command line.  You should also have a broad understanding of the various services.  Finally, in addition to knowing how to implement each service, make sure you also understand the best practices for these services (scaling, containers, virtual machine, high availability, security, databases, etc.) and the difference between infrastructure, platform, and software as a service. 

 The exam measures the following skills: 

• Designing highly scalable, available, and reliable cloud-native apps
• Building and testing apps
• Deploying apps
• Integrating Google Cloud Services
• Managing app performance monitoring  You must be able to explain how to perform each of these skills through the GC console or command line. 

You must also understand and have experimented with the following technologies:

• GC Projects
• Cloud Build
• Container Registry
• Compute Engine
• Cloud SDK (gcloud)
• Virtual Machine and Compute Engine
• Stack Driver (trace and logging)
• Kubernetes Engine
• GC APIs
• Google ML APIs
• App Engine
• Cloud Function
• VPC
• Cloud DNS
• Cloud Storage
• Cloud Bigtable
• Cloud Spanner
• Cloud SQL
• Cloud Endpoint
• Cloud Pub/Sub
• IAM
• Big Query
• Cloud Datastore
• Storage Transfer Service

 For each of these technologies, in addition to knowing and experimenting with them, you have to be prepared to connect them to build a robust and scalable platform.  As you are studying and preparing for the exam, if you see a detail that seems very specific and you think you'll never see it in a real project or be asked about it on the exam, think again. These exams are very specific, and as a very skilled cloud developer, you must be prepared for any possibility. 

 Google has a practice exam to help you understand the complexities and what will be measured on the actual exam.  

 The benefits of obtaining this certification include:

• Being able to participate in projects of high technical complexity related to issues of global apps and environments
• Recognition from the industry and your colleagues
• Direct benefits from GC, such as being registered in the Google certificates directory where anyone can find you, badges to share with the community, and other recognitions and discounts
• Qualification for better jobs—the certification is valid anywhere in the world  According to Indeed, the annual salary of a cloud developer on average reaches US$ 120,000, or more if you have additional experience and certifications like this one.  

Finally, some advice for your certification plan for becoming a GC Professional Cloud Developer:

• It's good to learn the technologies, but you should also focus on how they connect to each other on a global and high availability platform.
• You should also study the best practices that GC suggests for its technologies and understand various use cases for them.
• Be very disciplined in your study and don't assume that you know a technology well if you have not studied it, since there are always details that can deepen your understanding.
• Be a developer with multiple facets—that is, in fully cloud environments, hybrid environments, advising best practices for using the cloud, and how to help keep global apps secure and high.  Achieving this certification will mean taking a firm step in your professional career, wherever you want to develop. Congratulate yourself for taking this step, and give your 100% to become a certified and recognized developer.  I wish you a lot of success in becoming a GC Professional Cloud Developer!