GCP Professional Cloud Developer study guide
GCP Professional Cloud Developer · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Professional Cloud Developer certification is a Google Cloud credential for developers who build and configure scalable, secure applications using Google-recommended tools and best practices. According to Google Cloud, the target candidate works across the full development lifecycle - from architecting cloud-native applications to integrating machine learning capabilities, using generative AI APIs, and applying AI-powered development tools such as coding assistants, context engineering and automated debugging agents. The exam is a two-hour, multiple-choice assessment delivered either online with a remote proctor or onsite at a testing center. It is offered in English and Japanese, and registration costs $200 plus tax where applicable. The GCP Professional Cloud Developer study guide has 4 sections and about 1,435 words.
01Designing Highly Scalable, Secure, and Reliable Cloud-Native Applications
Cloud-native design on Google Cloud assumes any instance can die at any moment. Push session state, upload buffers, and caches off the instance into Memorystore, Firestore, Cloud Storage, or Spanner.
373 words, about 2 min02Building and Testing Applications
Cloud Build executes a config file of steps, each running in a container. Triggers fire on branch pushes, tags, or pull requests, so the same config can build pull-request previews and release images.
372 words, about 2 min03Configuring Cloud-Native Applications for Deployment
A deployable container must listen on the port the platform provides (Cloud Run injects PORT , defaulting to 8080), bind to 0.0.0.0 rather than localhost, write logs to stdout/stderr, keep the filesystem ephemeral, and handle SIGTERM by finishing in-flight requests before exit. Images must match the platform architecture, typically linux/amd64; build multi-arch or specify --platform if you develop on ARM.
333 words, about 2 min04Integrating Applications with Google Cloud Services
Client libraries use Application Default Credentials. The lookup order is the GOOGLE APPLICATION CREDENTIALS file, then the gcloud user credential file, then the metadata server of the attached service account.
357 words, about 2 min