About This Study Plan

This 30-day study plan breaks the PCD (Cloud Developer) exam preparation into 4 focused study sessions with 16 actionable tasks. The plan covers all 5 exam domains — Designing Cloud-Native Applications, Building and Testing, Deploying Applications, Integrating Services, Managing Performance — ensuring complete coverage. Structured 30-day plan for the Google Professional Cloud Developer exam.

4Study Sessions

16Total Tasks

5Domains Covered

Prerequisites

Programming experience
Basic GCP knowledge
2–3 hours per day

Study Schedule

Week 1App Design & Compute

Days 1–2: Cloud-native design patterns and 12-factor apps
Days 3–4: Compute for developers — Cloud Run, App Engine, GKE, Functions
Days 5–6: API design, Cloud Endpoints, and API Gateway
Day 7: Deploy a Cloud Run service end-to-end

Week 2Data & Messaging

Days 8–9: Database selection and data modeling for apps
Days 10–11: Pub/Sub patterns, Cloud Tasks, and Eventarc
Days 12–13: Cloud Storage for apps and Memorystore caching
Day 14: Build an event-driven microservice

Week 3CI/CD & Security

Days 15–16: Cloud Build, Artifact Registry, and deployment pipelines
Days 17–18: Testing strategies and emulators
Days 19–20: IAM for apps, Secret Manager, and workload identity
Day 21: Observability — logging, monitoring, tracing

Week 4Review & Exam Prep

Days 22–23: Full practice exam #1 + review
Days 24–25: Build a sample multi-service application
Days 26–27: Full practice exam #2 + weak areas
Days 28–30: Service selection drills, flashcards, and rest

Study Tips

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Build at least one application using Cloud Run + Pub/Sub + Firestore.

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Know the difference between push and pull subscriptions in Pub/Sub.

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Understand Cloud Build YAML syntax — it appears in exam questions.

Recommended Google Cloud Study Resources

Supplement this study plan with Google Cloud Skills Boost, which provides structured learning paths aligned to each certification. The Google Cloud documentation is exceptionally detailed and frequently referenced in exam questions. Take advantage of the free $300 credit for new GCP accounts to build real projects during your study period.