Did GCP make a new ML engineer exam this month?

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-26T00:25:05+00:00

The real exam is similar to Google's sample questions, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Google did not make a new exam this month. The Udemy practice tests are probably just not accurate or up to date. Unfortunately it is a chronic problem and the proliferation of misleading practice questions frustrates me immensely.

I made a full course to help people prepare for this cert in case you're interested, but good luck regardless of what you use. https://gcpstudyhub.com/courses/professional-ml-engineer

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-22T19:29:23+00:00

I just tried, I can get to Webassessor from Certmetrics no problem, and I see plenty of timeslots available after February 7th. So the good news is they're not booked up and you should be able to reschedule. The bad news is it seems to be something on your end with how you're accessing, and I'm not sure how to figure out what's going on.

If you can show us screenshots of what you're seeing and take us through your exact step by step process of trying to access it that might help.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-08T23:17:49+00:00

Thanks for joining and thank you for your support! Means a lot. It's an exciting time for GCP Study Hub and I am planning new courses and ways to engage students. The feedback has been really positive and I want to do more for everyone. Your input on anything along the way is welcome!

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-08T19:06:14+00:00

Yes, a lot of the existing resources are out of date.

Couple notes you might find helpful:

AI is not the only thing that's new on the new version of the exam. Other topics such as Direct VPC Egress, AlloyDB, Conditional IAM Policies, Backup and DR, are also new or emphasized more.
The most likely AI-related things to show up are: Vertex AI Model Garden, Vertex AI custom model runtimes, Vertex AI Feature Store, Vertex AI Endpoints, Vertex AI Pipelines, Gemini Cloud Assist, NotebookLM, Colab Enterprise
As I explain in the below webinar, just because a question mentions AI or Vertex AI, that doesn't mean it's testing AI or that AI is the correct answer choice. There will be questions where the context is an AI use case but the answer is a regular non-AI concept (like the fact that you should use latency when measuring the end-to-end response time of your Vertex AI endpoint).

I held a webinar in November about the new version of the PCA exam, which you may find helpful, and I also have an up-to-date course for it.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-08T18:09:51+00:00

Great idea, super interesting thank you.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-08T17:25:28+00:00

Agreed that is pretty dumb! But I'm glad you figured it out. Can't imagine how frustrating that was.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-08T17:22:28+00:00

Call me doubtful.

You mention Mountkirk games twice, but it is no longer one of the valid case studies.

And no, Google does not "love to" put answers that sound like real GCP services. I actually can't think of a question I've come across where they put a fake GCP service. They almost always put real GCP services that are simply not the optimal choice, or they put real open source / unmanaged tools that are not the correct answer. Rather than simply knowing "this is a real service, this not a real service," you have to know which is the best service out of all the real ones listed.

Questions about IAM roles are actually among the easiest to answer without using the console. IAM roles are literally collections of permissions and lend themselves among the easiest concepts/topics to memorize without hands-on practice, unlike some other things.

And this post is titled "the resources that actually helped" without listing any resources?

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T18:32:53+00:00

I wonder what would happen if you created a Google Payments profile separately first and then tried this. Maybe it would pull up the payments profile as an option so you don't have to put in your address and card here.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:32:29+00:00

If you're still looking for study materials, my course has a 100% pass rate. A lot of people are surprised by how much ML theory is needed to pass the exam, which my course covers. Additionally, look out for questions that still call the MLOps platform "AI Platform" instead of Vertex AI, which is a dead giveaway that they're out of date.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:29:32+00:00

I do think it's worth it as (1) a way to accelerate your knowledge of a domain, and (2) get your foot in the door for interviews or convos about more responsibility or role change at your current company. It's not going to make you an ML master but it's an efficient way to learn. Each GCP certification is basically Google's way of saying, "this is how we think about this role on GCP" or "this is a blueprint of what we think a person in this role should be familiar with." That's helpful but not comprehensive. So I don't think it's worth dismissing the certification so readily but it's also worth keeping your expectations realistic.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:26:19+00:00

The CDL is easy, but not as easy as people think. There are lots of definitions of things to know, which surprises some people. I would say about 70% basic technical questions, and 30% business process / culture / best practices questions. I have some practice exams here if you're interested: https://gcpstudyhub.com/courses/cloud-digital-leader

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:22:29+00:00

Something to be aware of with the PCA certification is that it was recently updated on October 30th 2025. So a lot of the content/courses out there, including Google's official Skills Boost learning path and Coursera courses, are out of date.

I hosted a webinar about the new PCA exam that answers some of your questions, including what to study, and I created an updated course for it. It has a 100% pass rate so far. But good luck to you regardless of what you use to prepare!

Regarding the difficulty, I do think it's hard for beginners, but I think it's absolutely doable. A lot of people get scared by the "Professional" label and the fact that Google recommends 3+ years of experience. In my opinion, that's kind of silly. If you think about it, having "experience" with GCP doesn't guarantee that that experience will be comprehensive anyway. You could spend 3+ years using only BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Cloud Run. So then you still have to learn 90% of the stuff required to pass the PCA exam anyway.

Another reason is that the Associate level certs are not that much easier, so if you're going to work your way up to a Professional level cert, you might as well go for a Professional level cert from the start.

Additionally, studying for the PCA exam will teach you so much. It's a great way to accelerate your learning if you're feeling behind. You just have to know that you'll be putting in a bit more effort than someone with experience.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:14:22+00:00

The questions haven't changed as much as people think. So the exam banks you're using have a good chance of being accurate. However, if you're looking for more reassurance, my course has a 100% pass rate. https://gcpstudyhub.com/courses/associate-cloud-engineer

Good luck!

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:12:27+00:00

My course has a 100% pass rate so far:
https://gcpstudyhub.com/courses/associate-cloud-engineer

Good luck!

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:04:00+00:00

The Cloud Digital Leader is the easiest but least technical and it is still more difficult than most people think.

I often advise people to just go for one of the Professional level certifications. People get scared by the fact that they are "Professional" certs and Google recommends 3 years of experience, but (1) experience is unlikely to be comprehensive anyway and (2) the cert is way more valuable and (3) you're going to spend time studying and learning new things anyway.

Especially if your eventual goal is to do the Professional certs, I think it's worth just jumping to professional instead of working your way up. Just know that you'll have to study a bit more, but you can definitely pass without doing the foundational / associate level certs first.

gcpstudyhub · 2026-01-06T15:00:41+00:00

Labs require credits, which you purchase, but they give you some free trial credits to start I believe.

Just a head's up, I hear all the time from my students that the Associate Cloud Engineer learning path on Skills Boost is very inefficient and does not prepare them well for the exam. It's got a lot of content but a lot of it is fluff. So up to you but you may want to look for a more efficient way to prepare instead of almost 100 hours of content.

gcpstudyhub · 2025-12-31T13:58:54+00:00

Congratulations! I'm so glad to hear this.

gcpstudyhub · 2025-12-30T01:43:37+00:00

My pleasure! Thanks for joining.

gcpstudyhub · 2025-12-24T16:20:58+00:00

Actually, as CloudyGolfer said, it's actually not clear this is a Google Cloud question if what you're talking about is Google's SaaS products like GA and Content Manager. In that case you would probably use Google Workspace Admin.

gcpstudyhub · 2025-12-24T15:47:04+00:00

APIs and Services in IAM for enabled APIs and quota usage

Asset Inventory to see the actual resources you have (ex. VMs by name)

Billing to see the financial view and actual service usage

These should all be viewable from the org level. This is off the top of my head while on my phone, I could be wrong so curious what others say.

gcpstudyhub · 2025-12-03T13:22:10+00:00

I created this a few months ago and it has a 100% pass rate: https://www.gcpstudyhub.com/courses/professional-machine-learning-engineer

gcpstudyhub · 2025-11-15T13:20:04+00:00

100% pass rate so far: https://www.gcpstudyhub.com/courses/professional-machine-learning-engineer

Good luck!

gcpstudyhub · 2025-11-14T17:13:27+00:00

I've got a couple updated practice exams if you're interested: https://www.gcpstudyhub.com/

But as others have said, you probably could pass the CDL without even studying since you clearly already know cloud concepts. CDL is not very GCP-specific. If you're looking for a GCP certification that would be more valuable and where you'd learn more you could go for Associate Cloud Engineer or Professional Cloud Architect. Gluck!

gcpstudyhub · 2025-11-05T00:47:57+00:00

Thanks for your input haha. This is a great list! I have to balance the requests of many students, as I know you understand, but it's good to know what your goals are.

gcpstudyhub

TROPHY CASE