How I aced the Google Cloud Platform ACE certification in 8 weeks

Aced the ACE? Excellent play on words, eh?. If you wondered what ACE was referring to, rest assured that this isn’t about the hardware store or a game of blackjack. This post will be chronicling my journey to become a Google Cloud Platform Associate Cloud Engineer.

With the rapid acceleration of the enterprise digital transformation, cloud computing opportunities for engineers and companies are endless.

I hope this post encourages you to consider cloud computing opportunities and shows you how you can become a Google Cloud Platform Associate Cloud Engineer.

What’s an Associate Cloud Engineer?

Check out Google’s official doc for a detailed description here.

A cloud engineer deploys applications, monitors operations, and administers the cloud environment.

The Exam

This was a 2 hour, multiple-choice, and multiple-select 50 question exam.

Google doesn’t disclose the passing score, and you only see a pass/fail at the end of the exam.

My Journey

November

I started my GCP journey in mid-November by joining an internal study group at my firm. We had a syllabus and a community of highly motivated and proactive individuals sharing what they were learning and supporting each other.

For 6 weeks, we went through online training via external tools, completed labs and quests to master each cloud computing domain, and worked on sample exam questions. The energy was palpable, the support authentic. We also had a little competition with a scoreboard of who completed the most labs and quests!

November & Early December — Qwiklabs labs & quests (6 weeks)

Late December — Merry Christmas!!! (no studying)

January & February — It was difficult to free up time to dedicate to this due to a busy work & personal schedule. (no studying)

March — Ummm…..If you don’t intentionally carve time out of your schedule, it will never happen. I decided to have a solid plan to sit for the exam. I registered for the exam and having a deadline incentivized me to prep aggressively. (2 weeks)

I also purchased Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer All-in-one Exam Guide x Jack Hyman. I started reading it and working through the end-of-chapter exercises. This was a good, easy-to-read, and comprehensive resource to supplement my exam prep!

Finally, 2 days before my exam, I purchased and used TutorialDujo’s GCP ACE practice exam.

Recap of How I prepped for and Passed the exam

• I completed 7 qwiklabs quests ( a collection of related labs that build upon each other. ~ 47 labs)
• I reviewed the Hyman All-in-one exam guide and end-of-chapter questions.
• I used TutorialDujo’s practice exam.
• I registered for the exam before I was ready to motivate me to prep, and it worked :)

If your goal is to become well-versed in a particular cloud environment, certification alone doesn’t mean competence. However, it’s a good step in the right direction, especially when coupled with hands-on real word experience.

I hope this inspires and encourages you to pass the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer certification or any other ones by AWS or Microsoft Azure! You can do it! I believe in you!!