2020 Google Cloud Certified Professional Data Engineer Certification

Got through on the first try without any prior experience on google cloud…

Became a certified Data Engineer on 5th of September 2020 .... Phew!!!

A long time dream come true.This was my first big data / cloud certification.

I would love to share my journey from Cloud and Big Data noob to being Google Certified Data engineer. All within a span of 4 months in the current lockdown scenario.

This certification is one of the toughest out there as it covers a vast area of knowledge. The questions were pretty tricky that assess in-depth knowledge. It was especially challenging for me to grasp the basics, understand all the various tools and platforms that google cloud provides and have enough confidence to actually appear for the exam.

Note: I feel this certification does not make one a data engineer but is just a validation of the skills one has acquired.

Being a beginner in cloud I had difficulty understanding where to start and how to proceed. This document will probably give those who like me are beginners and want to start learning about Cloud tech and data engineering a guide to proceed and ace the exam.

So why go for GCP — Professional Data engineer ?

I have 9 years of IT experience and have worked mostly with Data. From ETL flows in SSIS, scripts in PLSQL, visualization in OBIEE to Analytical data analysis in Hyperion Essbase. In all my years I have always been interested in Data transformations and data viz but was lacking both knowledge and exposure to big data tech.

So when i was looking for ways to upgrade myself and learn more about cloud solutions ,big data and ML solutions I was lost as to where to start. There is a great deal of stuff to know and understand but difficult to pick a starting point. So my plan was to find something that exposes the widest possible tech stack and concepts. That logically would be a cloud platform with all its offerings. Now from a data perspective the biggest players in the space are Google, Amazon and Azure. Out of these I had preference for Google and have also used the Google Cloud APIs for some personal projects. I must say I really like google’s documents and straight forward solutions so google cloud it was.

The GCP — PDE certification is great for data scientists, analysts or anyone who works with data. On addition I find Google’s offering being more straightforward with less overlap. The knowledge of cloud and distributed computing is slowly becoming essential everywhere.

My Journey

In May 2020, I started reading about the google cloud and its data solutions. Slowly but surely building up the basics using a few Udemy courses and doing hands-on in Qwiklabs.(You can find the details later in this article).

By June, I had understood the basics but wanted to have something to validate the skills which I was acquiring. So started reading about the certification and planned to appear by August end.

I booked the certification on the last week of august, had to take it on Saturday the 5th in the remote proctored mode. Spent the last week stressing over the exam as I was not very confident when I sat to take the exam. The final page popping up declaring the result (the word ‘PASS’ being written in a rather inconspicuous way ) was insanely reassuring.

The PREP

Two parts to it mainly : first is the basics of all the tech and platforms and second the actual exam.

I approached the exam like any other exam, carefully covering everything the exam wanted and practiced a lot of questions(which is really key to continuously evaluate your understanding of the concepts).

Courses and materials-

I went through the below material in order, slowly building the foundations and then diving deeper. Took profuse notes along the way. My note taking of choice is OneNOTE and plain paper notebooks( i managed to fill up one completely in these 3 months):

1. gcp-data-engineer-and-cloud-architect — very thorough and wide coverage of topics — great for beginners like me as it covered a lot of topics even beyond the data engineering exam. Highly recommend as a starting point.
2. Linux Academy google-cloud-certified-professional-data-engineer — This was paid but had a free 7 days which I completed in 5 days . Was a great starting point for learning the basics of google cloud data engineer with great example and hands on labs.
3. google-cloud-professional-data-engineer-get-certified— Next level, very helpful for the exam and the last sample test was great for prepping. This course is by Dan Sullivan, who is the author of the official guide.
4. https://www.whizlabs.com/ — for sample tests , questions had good coverage of the topics , and i found a lot of gaps in my learning from these practice tests which helped me in my final prep for the exam.
5. Coursera courses are very thorough, I went through a few in audit mode. Great for learning in detail with hands on but in the interest of time I skipped going through it in detail.
6. https://www.qwiklabs.com/ the essential hands on stuff.

For questions I referred to www.examtopics.com— good collection of questions but take the answers with a pinch of salt.

Besides these courses what is quintessential is going through Google’s own documentation.

Documentation | Google Cloud

This was the difficult part as this is more like an ocean. My approach was to navigate it along the below points:

>Start from Basic keywords —>then check out the Solutions -> then finally go through the CONCEPTS for each tool/ platform

Essential topics that should be focused on :

1. Export / import options from each tool
2. Security options for each
3. Data backup strategies
4. pricing estimates
5. Understand the differences and use cases of each
6. Hands on and what all options are available for each tool is essential.

For the ML related questions :

Machine Learning Crash Course | Google Developers

was immensely helpful in understanding the basics.

Some of the other links that have helped :

1. Satishvj’s notes and links + github — Awesomest repo of info…
2. https://github.com/Leverege/gcp-data-engineer-exam
3. https://grumpygrace.dev/posts/gcp-flowcharts/

The EXAM

The exam was 200 USD and had to be setup via webassessor in advance.

My observations of the exam:

1. Took the exam in a remote proctored mode. Ensure you have a quiet place with proper lighting. I was asked to show the room, even show whats under the desk and all wires connected to the laptop.
2. The interface was quite laggy.
3. I once had my hand over my forehead for about a minute and the exam automatically paused. Turns out you are not supposed to cover any part of your face or eyes.
4. 50 questions 2 hours — no pass marks are known. There is just a small PASS shown at the end and a link to the certificate comes over mail within 7–10 days. I received the mail after 5 days , probably because of delays due to labor day.
5. Questions were well distributed. Most important key is to read the question in detail, ever word is a potential clue or minefield.
6. ML and AI had a few questions — ~10, there was 1 case study question(did not need to refer to the provided link) , 4–5 questions on composer and scheduler , 3–4 questions on stack driver monitoring, 4–5 on pub sub/ kafka, Multiple choice ones were really tricky. Many answers seemed somewhat correct. You have to choose the best answer.
7. On the first pass I had 23 questions in review. Remember to read the questions very carefully and take your time.
8. Elimination method — always try to eliminate the incorrect ones. That helps with the more difficult questions.

On successfully passing, you get

• a certificate and badge to download and share
• access to a digital portal to create a profile and share
• a voucher to get either a hoodie or a bag, and a sticker from google.

The certificate received

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That was my first step into the world of cloud and big data. Hoping to level up next with the ML and security aspects of google cloud before I move into multi cloud.

And then there is the re-certification in two years. Till then gotta keep building and learning…….

Reach out for any help @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/shantonobghosh/