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Google Cloud · GCP-PCD · Advanced

Professional Cloud Developer — Practice Questions and Mock Exam

Prepare for GCP-PCD with original practice questions and clear answer explanations. Ask Alex, your AI tutor, when you need more detail, use your results to identify topics to review, and practice your pacing with timed mock exams.

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55Mock exam questions

120minTime limit

Checked against Google Cloud · August 2026 · Current exam version

Overview

About the exam

The Professional Cloud Developer certification validates the ability to design, build, test, and deploy cloud-native applications on Google Cloud. It covers application architecture, CI/CD integration, containerization with Cloud Run and GKE, and leveraging Google Cloud services for storage, messaging, and AI. The exam guide weights designing scalable, secure, and reliable cloud-native applications most heavily (~32%), and the developer role now explicitly includes generative AI APIs and AI-powered development tools.

This is a professional-level credential for software engineers and developers building cloud-native applications on Google Cloud. Google recommends 3+ years of industry experience, including 1+ years designing and managing cloud solutions on Google Cloud, and it leads to cloud developer, full-stack developer, and application architect roles.

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Try five GCP-PCD questions

Try five practice questions from the app’s current Professional Cloud Developer question bank, with answers and explanations.

Configuring cloud-native applications for deployment1 / 5

You are deploying containers to GKE and want to ensure high availability of your application. You need to implement health checks that prevent traffic from being sent to pods that are not ready to serve requests. Which Kubernetes probe should you configure?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

In Kubernetes, readiness probes determine whether a pod is ready to receive traffic. When a readiness probe fails, the pod is removed from Service endpoints, preventing requests from reaching it. This differs from liveness probes, which restart containers that are stuck, and startup probes, which gate the initial startup period. 'Container probe' is not a valid Kubernetes probe type. For GKE deployments, readiness probes integrate with load balancer health checks—GKE can infer health check parameters from readiness probe definitions. Ref: docs.cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/troubleshooting/ingress-health-checks

Sourcecloud.google.com

Integrating applications with Google Cloud services2 / 5

Your application stores user-generated images in Cloud Storage. You need to generate thumbnails automatically whenever a new image is uploaded. Which event-driven architecture should you implement?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

Eventarc enables event-driven architectures on Google Cloud by routing events from sources like Cloud Storage to targets like Cloud Run functions. When an object is created in a bucket, Eventarc delivers a google.cloud.storage.object.v1.finalized event as an HTTP request to your function in near real-time. Cloud Scheduler polls on a fixed schedule—unsuitable for real-time processing. Cloud Monitoring alerts are for observability, not triggering compute. Cloud SQL triggers do not exist as a GCP event mechanism for object storage. Ref: docs.cloud.google.com/run/docs/tutorials/trigger-functions-storage

Sourcecloud.google.com

Designing highly scalable, secure, and reliable cloud-native applications3 / 5

You are designing an API for a microservices architecture on Google Cloud. The API must support bidirectional streaming, low-latency communication between services, and strongly typed contracts. Which protocol should you use?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

gRPC is a high-performance RPC framework by Google using Protocol Buffers for binary serialization (up to 7x faster than REST/JSON). It natively supports four patterns: unary, server streaming, client streaming, and bidirectional streaming. Proto files provide strongly typed service contracts with automatic code generation across languages. REST/JSON lacks native streaming and strong typing. GraphQL is optimized for flexible client queries, not inter-service communication. WebSockets support bidirectional communication but lack built-in service definitions, type safety, and code generation. Ref: docs.cloud.google.com/run/docs/triggering/grpc

Sourcecloud.google.com

Building and testing applications4 / 5

Your organization needs to scan container images for known vulnerabilities before they are deployed to GKE. Which Google Cloud service provides automated vulnerability scanning for container images?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

Artifact Analysis (formerly Container Analysis) automatically scans container images when pushed to Artifact Registry, detecting OS and language package vulnerabilities. It performs continuous analysis, updating vulnerability metadata as new CVEs are discovered. Binary Authorization enforces deployment policies but does not scan images—it relies on attestations. Security Command Center aggregates findings across services but does not perform container-specific scanning itself. Web Security Scanner tests running web applications, not container images at rest. Ref: docs.cloud.google.com/artifact-analysis/docs/container-scanning-overview

Sourcecloud.google.com

Configuring cloud-native applications for deployment5 / 5

You need to implement a cron-based scheduled task that triggers a Cloud Run service every day at midnight UTC. Which service should you use?

AlexFull explanation from Alex

Cloud Scheduler is Google Cloud's fully managed cron service for scheduling recurring jobs. It supports HTTP, Pub/Sub, and App Engine targets with unix-cron format scheduling (e.g., '0 0 * * *' for midnight UTC daily). It uses OIDC authentication for secure invocation of Cloud Run services. Cloud Tasks handles asynchronous task execution with configurable delays but is not designed for recurring cron patterns. Workflows orchestrates multi-step processes. Eventarc responds to events, not time-based schedules. Ref: docs.cloud.google.com/run/docs/triggering/using-scheduler

Sourcecloud.google.com

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Question pool

307 practice questions

The Pass-IT question pool gives you material to practice for GCP-PCD. A Pass-IT mock exam uses 55 questions and a 120-minute time limit; these are practice settings.

Pool details: GCP-PCD

Exam details checked against Google CloudAugust 13, 2026

date of the last check against the official Google Cloud source

Objectives in the guide11 objectives listed in the official guide

across 4 domains in the official exam guide

Pool size307 questions

= The pool size is equivalent to 5 sets of 55 questions; this does not mean that each mock exam uses a separate set.

Blueprint domains4 domains in the exam blueprint

Designing highly scalable, secure, and reliable cloud-native applications 103 · Building and testing applications 62 · Configuring cloud-native applications for deployment 67 · Integrating applications with Google Cloud services 75

Recorded as checked against sources307 of 307

questions recorded as having their answer, options, and explanation checked against official Google Cloud documentation

How questions are made →

Exam domains

What's on the exam

Application design carries the most weight at 32%: choosing a compute platform among Compute Engine, GKE, and Cloud Run, architecting APIs with caching and load balancing, keeping service-to-service calls scoped to least privilege, and picking a database schema that fits the data's volume and consistency needs. Configuring applications for deployment follows at 24%, testing whether a Cloud Run release goes live correctly and whether a containerized GKE rollout stays healthy and available under autoscaling. Building and testing takes 23%: the local dev loop, container images built and registered through Artifact Registry and Cloud Build, and AI-assisted test writing. Integrating with the rest of Google Cloud closes the blueprint at 21%, covering data and messaging connections, API consumption patterns, and observability instrumentation for troubleshooting.

The emphasis on design over pure syntax reflects the exam's premise: it assumes you can already write the code and tests whether you would architect it correctly under real constraints (latency, cost, failure modes), not whether you know a particular framework's API.

Exam blueprint: GCP-PCD

Designing highly scalable, secure, and reliable cloud-native applications~32%

Choose an appropriate compute platform and design performant, cost-efficient APIs with caching, load balancing, and event-driven integration, and apply application security practices such as secrets management, IAM-based service account access, and least-privilege service-to-service communication. Also covers selecting and designing storage and database schemas based on data volume, consistency, and analytics requirements.

≈ 32 h

Building and testing applications~23%

Stand up a local dev loop with Google Cloud emulators and IDE tooling, build and register container images with provenance tracking, and lean on AI coding assistants to write and run the accompanying test suite.

≈ 23 h

Configuring cloud-native applications for deployment~24%

Deploy applications to Cloud Run from source code, configure event triggers, and version and expose APIs, and deploy containerized workloads to GKE with health checks and Horizontal Pod Autoscaler configuration for availability and scaling.

≈ 24 h

Integrating applications with Google Cloud services~21%

Connect applications to Google Cloud data and storage services and integrate messaging for publishing and consuming data, call Google Cloud APIs using client libraries or REST/gRPC with appropriate error handling and service account authentication, and instrument code for troubleshooting using metrics, logs, traces, and Error Reporting.

≈ 21 h

Format

Exam format and question types

The exam draws 50–60 multiple-choice and multiple-select questions inside a 120-minute window, weighted roughly 80% single-answer to 20% multiple-select. Questions present a development scenario and ask you to choose the right architecture, service, or approach, commonly touching Cloud Run, GKE, Cloud Functions, Pub/Sub, Firestore, or an application-security control.

Question types: GCP-PCD

Multiple Choice80%

Select the single answer that best meets the question’s requirements.

Multiple Response20%

Select multiple answers. Follow the question’s instructions on how many to choose.

See Google Cloud for official question-format information. The shares shown describe the Pass-IT practice pool; they do not establish the proportions on the official exam.

Planning

Preparing for GCP-PCD

The exam runs through Pearson VUE, either online-proctored or at a testing center, and is offered in English and Japanese. The certification holds for 2 years, with renewal available during the renewal eligibility period.

Preparation and logistics: GCP-PCD

Preparation

Illustrative study time60–150 h

illustrative planning range: 60 h with relevant experience to 150 h when starting out; your needs may fall outside this range

LevelAdvanced

Recommended backgroundNo formal prerequisites. Recommended 3+ years of industry experience including 1+ years designing and managing cloud solutions using Google Cloud.

Taking and maintaining the certification

DeliveryOnline-proctored (Pearson VUE) or onsite-proctored at testing centers

Retake policy14-day wait after the first failed attempt, 60 days after the second, 365 days after the third. Maximum 4 attempts in a 2-year period.

Certification validity2 years

Certification validity subject to renewal within the eligibility period.

Official guideView on provider site

Study notes

Common pitfalls

Topics to review: GCP-PCD

01Serverless Selection
Not knowing when Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, or App Engine is the best fit
02Database Selection
Choosing the wrong database for the workload — Firestore vs Cloud SQL vs Spanner vs Bigtable
03Event-Driven Architecture
Misunderstanding Pub/Sub, Eventarc, and Cloud Tasks for asynchronous processing
04Container Best Practices
Overlooking container security, image scanning, and Artifact Registry patterns

Practice with questions and explanations in Pass-IT →

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Which pitfalls should I review when preparing for Professional Cloud Developer?

Topics to review include Serverless Selection, Database Selection, Event-Driven Architecture, Container Best Practices. Work through examples to check that you understand the distinctions and can explain your answer.

How is the Professional Cloud Developer exam weighted?

Designing scalable, secure and reliable cloud-native applications is the largest section at 32%. Configuring applications for deployment takes 24%, building and testing 23% and integrating with Google Cloud services 21%. Design carries almost a third even though this is the developer exam.

What does the Professional Cloud Developer exam assume you know?

Google Cloud recommends three or more years of industry experience with at least one year building on the platform, without enforcing either. The catalog budget is around 100 hours. The questions expect you to have deployed and debugged something on Google Cloud rather than only written code that runs there.

How long is Professional Cloud Developer valid?

Two years, like the other Google Cloud professional certifications. Renewal happens inside an eligibility window before expiry, so the date is worth putting in a calendar rather than trusting to memory.

What happens if you fail Professional Cloud Developer?

You wait 14 days for a second attempt, 60 days for a third and 365 days for any after that. Google Cloud also limits you to four attempts in a two-year window.

One certification, 12 months

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