At Data Runs Deep we require our Google Cloud Platform (GCP) team to all hold the Professional Data Engineer certification. Because this is one of the newest certifications on the scene, there is little information available out there on study methods and what to expect in the exam. We have decided to “open source” our collective learnings to help other budding Professional Data Engineers pass the exam with minimal stress (but there will still be stress!). These are things we wish we knew as we prepared for our exam. We hope it will be useful to you too!

1. How to pass your GCP Professional
Data Engineer exam
@vinoaj

2. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
What we’re striving for

3. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Traditional Google certifications

4. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Traditional Google certifications
Throw
out
everything you
experienced

5. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
GCP certifications are a different breed
● Involves a LOT of study
● Closed-book
● Proctored at a testing centre
● Restricted re-taking rules
● No indication of what the pass
mark is
● No indication of which questions
you got right or wrong
Image source: Wikipedia

6. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Who am I?
Vinoaj (Vinny) Vijeyakumaar
Director - Cloud Services
@vinoaj

7. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
We put ourselves under pressure to pass the
exam on the first go
Why?

8. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Today’s agenda is very simple
● Preparation
● Exam tips
● Q&A

9. Preparation

10. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Let’s start from the end: register for an exam
• Having an end date in mind will drive you to study
• Exam availability is limited in some cities
• USD$200 registration fee

11. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Do not attempt this if you’re making a cold
start
• You are expected to have some prior experience in digital
data, especially from an engineering perspective
• There are questions that call upon your “general” data
experience and that aren’t necessarily covered in the training
materials. Some examples:
• Questions on SQL normalisation and denormalisation
• Questions on bandwidth utilisation and network latency for transferring
data files

12. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Google Resource
● Google Cloud Certified -
Professional Data Engineer page
● Entry point to:
○ Requirements
○ Exam registration
○ Online courses + labs
○ Case studies
○ Sample exam

13. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj

14. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Coursera
• Specialization: Data Engineering on Google Cloud Platform
• Google Cloud Platform Big Data and Machine Learning Fundamentals
• Leveraging Unstructured Data with Cloud Dataproc on Google Cloud Platform
• Serverless Data Analysis with Google BigQuery and Cloud Dataflow
• Serverless Machine Learning with Tensorflow on Google Cloud Platform
• Building Resilient Streaming Systems on Google Cloud Platform
• 7 days free trial; then $66/month until you complete the
specialization
• Great value for money - equivalent classroom courses would set you back

15. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Coursera - Tips & Tricks
• Each course: suggested 1 week but can be done in a day
• Speed up the videos
• Write notes on paper to reinforce learning
• Qwiklab labs won’t give you all the skills you need. Use it as a
starting point, but explore on your own

16. Get a handle on key concepts: compute, storage, network
Compute
Compute
Engine
App
Engine
Kubernetes
Engine
GPU
Cloud
Functions
Container-
Optimized OS
Storage & Databases
Cloud
Storage
Cloud
Bigtable
Cloud
Datastore
Cloud SQL
Cloud
Spanner
Persistent
Disk
Cloud
Memorystore
Cloud
Filestore

17. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Get a handle on key concepts
● GCP fundamental elements
○ Compute
○ Storage
○ Network
● Understand how each data solution (e.g. BigQuery, Dataflow)
makes use of GCP compute, storage, and network under the
hood

18. Know your mappings

19. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Get a handle on key concepts
• Know the mapping of Apache solutions to GCP equivalents
• Know the mapping of AWS solutions to GCP equivalents
• Examples:
• Hadoop -> Dataproc
• HDFS -> Google Cloud Storage
• Kafka -> PubSub
• Beam -> Dataflow

20. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Get a handle on key concepts
• Understand the right use cases for each product - e.g.
• Realtime high-volume transactions -> BigTable
• SQL + horizontal scaling -> Spanner

21. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Other useful resources: YouTube
• Next’17 playlist
• Next’18 playlist is also
useful but exam
hasn’t (yet) caught up
to the new features
• Google Cloud
Platform channel

22. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Other useful resources: Linux Academy

23. Exam tips

24. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Take the practice exam
• https://cloud.google.com/certificati
on/practice-exam/data-engineer
• Questions are similar to what you’ll
experience in the exam
• Useful explanations on the correct
answers

25. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
The exam
• At a testing centre + no external materials allowed
• Online exam; no access to browsers or other
software
• 2 hours; 50 multiple-choice questions ( => 2.4 mins /
question)
• No indication of what the pass mark is
• Assumption: 75% pass mark (i.e. you need to get 38
questions right; or you can only afford to get 12
questions wrong)
Image source: Giphy

26. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Familiarise yourself with the case studies
• Save yourself some valuable time
by pre-reading the case studies
• Think about what solutions are
appropriate for each case
• Approx. 12 questions were
case-study related (YMMV)

27. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
• Multiple choice with 4
potential choices
• Most questions have
only one answer
• A small (~10%) set of
questions have
multiple answers
Question format
Image source: Flickr > admissions360

28. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Mark questions for review
• You can mark questions for review
• My tip: Use it in reverse
• Mark the questions that you are 90%+ certain that you have got right
• Don’t leave the exam until you have at least 38 questions marked
• The first pass of the exam takes ~30 minutes (YMMV)
• Use the remaining time to keep reviewing your answers

29. Lorem ipsum dolor
sit amet, consectetur
adipiscing elit.
Vivamus ut risus at
nulla porttitor
consequat.
Suspendisse
imperdiet Pass /
Fail faucibus
elementum. Donec
interdum rhoncus
elit ac cursus. Nullam
ut lobortis augue.
Timeline to your final results
T0: Presented with a
dense wall of text -
somewhere in there is
your result
T+1: Provisional status updated on
webassessor.com
T+7 (to 10): Final confirmation from
Google

30. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
There’s no fanfare at the end
• Presented with a dense wall of text - somewhere in there is
your pass / fail status
• If you pass - congratulations!
• The result is provisional
• Google will follow up with a final confirmation a week later

31. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Your certificate lives on credential.net
Share your
credentials
and
generate
badges (all
blockchain
verified)

32. Voucher codes

33. © Data Runs Deep 2018 | @vinoaj
Google voucher codes (thank you Google!)
• Coursera: One Google specialization one month free (save
$66!) - http://bit.ly/gcp-voucher-coursera
• Coursera: GCP for AWS Professionals one month free -
http://bit.ly/gcp-voucher-coursera-aws
• Qwiklabs: GCP Essentials quest one month free -
http://bit.ly/gcp-voucher-qwiklabs
All valid until 1/1/19

34. Thank you for your time!
Q&A
vinny@datarunsdeep.com.au