Back in June, I sat and passed the Google Cloud Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer exam.
This marked my third time earning this credential (having first passed in 2021). While the exam has evolved over the years, it remains one of the most practical and valuable certifications in the Google Cloud portfolio. It sits squarely at the intersection of modern software delivery, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) culture, and platform engineering.
Whether you are taking this exam for the first time or renewing it like I was, the bar remains high. It requires more than just knowing what the products do; you need to know how to use them to fix broken pipelines, troubleshoot crashing clusters, and maintain reliability at scale.
Here is my guide to the exam based on my recent experience, covering the key topics you need to master.
What is the Google Cloud Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer certification?
As per Google’s official definition:
“A Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer is responsible for efficient development operations that can balance service reliability and delivery speed. They are skilled at using Google Cloud Platform to build software delivery pipelines, deploy and monitor services, and manage and learn from incidents.”
In simpler terms, this exam validates that you know how to apply SRE principles (like SLOs and Error Budgets) and can build secure, automated CI/CD pipelines using Google Cloud tools.
Who is this certification aimed at?
This certification is aimed at DevOps Engineers, SREs, and Platform Engineers. If your day-to-day involves managing GKE clusters, writing Cloud Build pipelines, configuring monitoring dashboards, or arguing about Error Budgets with product owners, this is the exam for you.
It bridges the gap between a developer (writing code) and an operator (keeping it running), with a heavy emphasis on the Google Cloud implementation of SRE practices.
Key Study Topics & Themes
While the official exam guide is your source of truth, here are the specific themes that stood out during my recent sitting.
1. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Principles
This is the heart of the exam. You absolutely must understand the relationship between SLIs, SLOs, and Error Budgets.
- Defining SLOs: Ensure you know how to choose a valid Service Level Indicator (SLI) for a given user journey.
- Burn Rates: Be comfortable calculating burn rates and determining when to alert based on them.
- Error Budgets: Understand the business consequences of exhausting them (e.g., halting feature releases to focus on reliability).
Figure 1: SRE Reliability Hierarchy Diagram
💡 Pro Tip: Know Your DORA Metrics The exam loves to test your knowledge of the “Four Keys” of software delivery performance. Memorise these definitions:
- Deployment Frequency: How often you release to production.
- Lead Time for Changes: Time from code commit to running in production.
- Time to Restore Service: How long it takes to recover from a failure.
- Change Failure Rate: The percentage of deployments that cause a failure.
- Exam Tip: High performers optimise for all four. If a question asks how to measure “velocity,” look for Frequency and Lead Time. If it asks about “stability,” look for Restore Time and Failure Rate.
2. CI/CD & Release Strategies
There is a heavy focus on pipeline architecture and security.
- Binary Authorization: This is a critical security control. You should know how to configure attestations to ensure only trusted images are deployed.
- Jenkins: Don’t assume everything is Cloud Build! You may encounter scenarios involving Jenkins deployments, particularly troubleshooting deployments to on-premises environments.
- Deployment Strategies: Be clear on when to use Blue/Green, A/B testing, Canary deployments, and Rapid Failback.
- GitOps: Understand branching strategies and how to manage configuration to avoid state drift.
Figure 2: Secure CI/CD Pipeline Flowchart
3. Containerization & GKE
If you work with GKE, this section will be natural. If not, you need to study up.
- Troubleshooting: Be prepared for scenarios involving troubleshooting crashing PODs.
- Core Concepts: Focus heavily on core Kubernetes concepts. In my experience, understanding the fundamentals of K8s is more important than memorizing the nuances between GKE Standard and Autopilot.
- Configuration: You should be comfortable reading and interpreting Kubernetes YAML configurations.
- Helm vs. K8s Manifests: While Helm is popular, ensure you do not neglect your understanding of raw Kubernetes manifests and configuration connectors.
4. Logging & Monitoring
This section is significant and often underestimated.
- Log Sinks: Master the logic of “where to send logs.”
- Pub/Sub for streaming to external SIEMs (like Splunk).
- GCS for long-term retention and audit compliance.
- BigQuery for analytics.
- Filtering: Know how to filter log fields (e.g., stripping PII) before export to maintain security compliance.
- Dashboards: Be familiar with creating custom metrics from logs and building monitoring dashboards.
5. Security & Identity
- Workload Identity Federation: Know how to configure this for external CI/CD systems (like GitHub Actions) to access Google Cloud securely without managing service account keys.
- Secrets Management: Understand the trade-offs between Secret Manager and Environment Variables.
- Infrastructure as Code: Be ready to compare Config Connector and Terraform, specifically regarding how they handle state and drift.
Recommended Training Material
To prepare for this exam, I used a combination of the following resources:
- Official Exam Guide: Always start here to baseline your knowledge.
- DevOps Engineer, SRE Skills Path: This is the recently updated “Google Skills” learning path. It consolidates the best labs and courses into a single track and is the most up-to-date resource for the 2025 exam.
- Google SRE Books: You don’t need to read them cover-to-cover, but reading the chapters on SLOs and Error Budgets in the Site Reliability Engineering book (available for free online) is invaluable.
- Sample Questions: Check the official sample questions to get a feel for the format.
Quick Wins: Skill Badges
If you don’t have time for a full course, grab these specific badges to brush up on the hardest topics. They are all included in the skills path linked above:
- Implement DevOps Workflows in Google Cloud: Essential for mastering the CI/CD and GKE sections.
- Monitor and Log with Google Cloud Observability: Critical for the Operations section.
- Build Infrastructure with Terraform on Google Cloud: Highly recommended given the exam’s focus on IaC state management.
- Monitor Environments with Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus: A newer badge that covers the increasing number of Prometheus-related questions.
Exam Strategy: Where to Focus
Depending on your background, you may need to adjust your study focus:
- For the “Tool-Heavy” Engineer: If you know Jenkins and Terraform inside out but haven’t worked in an SRE role, spend your time on Process. Focus on Error Budgets, Burn Rates, and Incident Management.
- For the “Process-Heavy” Engineer: If you know SRE principles but don’t touch the console often, focus on Product. Learn the specific details of Cloud Build triggers, Artifact Registry, and GKE networking.
One Key Difference vs. Cloud Architect: Unlike the Professional Cloud Architect exam, the DevOps exam does not have pre-published case studies (like Cymbal Retail or EHR Healthcare) that you need to memorize beforehand. All scenarios are self-contained within the questions. You don’t need to read a 10-page dossier before walking into the test centre!
Key Tip: Don’t neglect the “Why.” The exam tests your judgment. For example, knowing how to configure a Log Sink is good; knowing why you would send logs to Pub/Sub (speed/integration) versus GCS (cost/retention) is better.
Exam Details
- Length: 2 Hours
- Questions: 50–60 Multiple Choice / Multiple Select
- Validity: 2 Years
- Format: Standard Exam (Remote Proctored or Test Centre)
Conclusion
The Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer exam forces you to think not just about building systems, but about running them reliably at scale. It validates that you can take the theoretical concepts of SRE and apply them using Google Cloud’s toolset.
Good luck with your preparation!
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, I hope you find it useful in preparing for the Professional DevOps Engineer exam. Please feel free to share, subscribe to be alerted to future posts, follow me on LinkedIn, and react/comment below!
If you’re new to Google Cloud certifications, or you’re deciding what certification to do next, check out my other blog posts covering:
- Google Cloud Generative AI Leader Certification (GAIL)
- Google Cloud Digital Leader Certification (CDL)
- Google Cloud Associate Data Practitioner Certification (ADP)
- Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) Certification
- Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) Renewal Certification
- Google Cloud Professional Network Engineer Certification (PNE)
Originally published at https://www.cloudbabble.co.uk on December 5, 2025.
Google Cloud Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer Exam Guide (2025 Edition) was originally published in Google Cloud – Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Source Credit: https://medium.com/google-cloud/google-cloud-professional-cloud-devops-engineer-exam-guide-2025-edition-17e70b8561b9?source=rss—-e52cf94d98af—4
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