Hi!
I recently passed the GCP Professional Data Engineer certification exam and some people asked me for tips for the exam and study materials, so I decided to write this post to explain the path I took.
This is certainly not the only possible way to prepare for this test, but it was the one that worked for me. So be open-minded as each person has different ways of studying and learning.
Expectations alignment
Unlike some other certifications, the Professional Data Engineer (PDE) is definitely not a simple exam, where just study for 8 hours and you'll be ready. Google writes its questions in a way that only someone with hands-on experience and an understanding of their services can get across.
It is important to note that a certification is the validation of the knowledge you gain. The goal is not for you to memorize questions, but to actually understand the services that the cloud offers to be able to apply them in your day to day work. Keep this in mind as you prepare.
For this exam, Google recommends the following background: 3+ years of industry experience including 1+ years designing and managing solutions using Google Cloud. At the time I took the test I had 3 years of experience in the field of data engineering but I had no background with data-oriented cloud services. It is important to say that I already had a knowledge base in Cloud as I used AWS for 6 months in my previous work, but it was in a devops context and not data engineering. Either way, I think it's important for a person to have basic knowledge of Cloud architecture before attempting a specific exam like the GCP PDE. Therefore, for the GCP Professional Data Engineer exam I needed 4 months of intense studies to feel minimally confident to take the exam.
The exam itself
Before starting your preparation, it is worth exploring the official website. It contains all up-to-date information about the test and its content. It is worth mentioning that on the official website the cost of the exam is 200 dollars, but because I live in Brazil, I only paid 120 dollars. Google provides a section of the site, called Exam Guide, to explain what is on the test. So it's worth reading before starting your study and also taking a look when you feel you've studied a considerable amount of material, to see where you stand on the requirements.
If your company is a Google Cloud partner, it is very likely that it has the benefit of vouchers for its employees. These vouchers are usually available to anyone who completes a knowledge path made available by Google on the Qwiklabs platform.
The exam has a total of 50 questions and is 2 hours long. I consider this time enough to answer all the questions and even review the ones that were left as doubts.
More Detail:
https://dev.to/gabrielosluz/how-to-prepare-for-the-gcp-professional-data-engineer-certification-gek
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