Google Cloud

About Google Cloud certifications

Google Cloud groups its certifications into three levels. Foundational certifications, Cloud Digital Leader and Generative AI Leader, are for people who work alongside technical teams and need to understand what Google Cloud products do and where they fit; there are no technical prerequisites. Associate certifications, such as Associate Cloud Engineer, check that you can deploy and maintain projects yourself, and Google suggests around six months of hands-on use first. Professional certifications cover advanced design, build and operations work for a specific role, such as architect, data engineer, DevOps engineer or machine learning engineer. For those Google recommends three or more years of industry experience, including at least a year on Google Cloud.

No Google Cloud exam requires you to pass another one first, so the levels are a guide to difficulty rather than a ladder. Most exams report only pass or fail, without a published cut score.

Which exam to start with

• Deciding where AI fits, without writing code: Generative AI Leader. It is business-level and open to any role.
• First hands-on certification: Associate Cloud Engineer. It teaches projects, IAM, networking, compute and gcloud, which every professional exam builds on.
• Next, by role: Professional Cloud Architect for design across the whole platform, Professional Data Engineer for pipelines and BigQuery, Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer for CI/CD and site reliability engineering, and Professional Machine Learning Engineer for building and running ML on Vertex AI.

A common route is Associate Cloud Engineer first, then Professional Cloud Architect, then a second professional exam that matches your job.

How the practice questions here work

Each cert has practice tests of 10 questions with an explanation for every option and a link to the Google Cloud documentation behind it, and every question also has its own page. Associate Cloud Engineer and Generative AI Leader have the most tests; the professional certs have fewer so far. Associate Cloud Engineer, Generative AI Leader and Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer also have a full-length timed practice exam with answers hidden until you submit. Your scores are kept in your browser, with optional sign-in if you want them on another device.

These questions are original, written from the public Google Cloud documentation and exam guides. They are not real exam questions, and this site is not affiliated with Google.