Google Cloud Professional Cloud Developer (PCD) Study Guide: Build and Deploy
A GCP-PCD guide covering cloud-native design, application testing, deployment, Google Cloud integrations, and operations.
The Professional Cloud Developer (PCD) exam is for developers who build and deploy secure, scalable applications on Google Cloud. Beyond writing code, it covers architecture choices, testing, release strategies, cloud integrations, and observability.
This guide follows the official certification page and exam guide. GCP-PCD is the shorthand used on this site; follow the latest official guide as objectives change.
Who is it for?
It suits developers with experience in a general-purpose programming language and exposure to APIs, containers, or cloud-native applications. It focuses more on the application lifecycle than ACE. If your main focus is pipelines and production reliability, compare it with the DevOps Engineer guide.
Exam domains and weights
| Domain | Focus | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Designing scalable, available, reliable cloud-native applications | Application/API architecture, data, scalability | ~33% |
| Building and testing applications | Development setup, builds, secure containers, testing | ~26% |
| Deploying applications | Releases, serverless, version strategies | ~19% |
| Integrating applications with Google Cloud services | Data, messaging, identity, managed services | ~22% |
Core topics
For design questions, consider service level, latency, data consistency, traffic patterns, and team skills before choosing VMs, GKE, Cloud Run, or functions. Building and testing includes local tools, Cloud Build, Artifact Registry, unit/integration/load testing, and secure container images.
Deployment topics include progressive delivery, traffic splitting, rollback, API version compatibility, and event triggers. For integrations, review Pub/Sub, Eventarc, Cloud SQL/Spanner/Firestore, Secret Manager, authentication, and service accounts.
Common confusion: Cloud Run, GKE, and Compute Engine offer different control and operational effort. Release strategy is not always blue/green; choose based on rollback risk, traffic controls, and compatibility.
Study sequence and readiness check
Start with application architecture and data access patterns. Then practice the path from local development to CI, followed by deployment, cloud integrations, and logs/monitoring. Explain the security boundary and recovery plan for each design.
- Choose a runtime based on latency, scaling, and operational needs.
- Plan builds, tests, image storage, and release steps.
- Select a rollout or rollback strategy and explain why.
- Integrate data, messaging, secrets, and identity securely.
Keep practicing
Use developer scenarios to choose an application platform, test approach, and release strategy. Start GCP-PCD practice.