About the exam, for when you are ready to book
Quick answer
The Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer exam has 40-50 multiple-choice and multiple-select questions in 2 hours, costs USD 200 plus tax, and has no required prerequisites (checked November 2026). See all the exam facts.
About the exam
Professional Data Engineer
The Google Professional Data Engineer certification is for people who design, build, secure and operate data processing systems on Google Cloud (GCP). Google recommends 3 or more years of industry experience, including at least 1 year designing and managing Google Cloud solutions. If that describes your work, this practice test shows how well you know the topics the exam guide covers. The exam guide groups the content into five sections: designing data processing systems (about 22 percent), ingesting and processing the data (about 25 percent), storing the data (about 20 percent), preparing and using data for analysis (about 15 percent), and maintaining and automating data workloads (about 18 percent). Our questions are short, self-contained scenarios with exactly one correct answer, so they do not match the real format of multiple-select questions.
Our questions are original, written from the Google Professional Data Engineer exam guide and Google Cloud documentation, and each answer is explained. Studying nearby topics? Try the Databricks Data Engineer Associate, Snowflake SnowPro Core and Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer free practice tests.
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Exam facts
Professional Data Engineer: format, time and fee Last checked November 2026
- Exam name
- Professional Data EngineerGoogle Cloud certification page
- Questions
- 40 to 50 questions, multiple choice and multiple selectGoogle Cloud certification page
- Time
- 2 hoursGoogle Cloud certification page
- Fee
- USD 200, plus tax where applicableGoogle Cloud certification page
- Question types
- Multiple choice and multiple select. No case studies are mentioned on the certification page or in the guide.Google Cloud certification page
- Languages
- English, JapaneseGoogle Cloud certification page
- Delivery
- Online-proctored from a remote location, or onsite-proctored at a testing centerGoogle Cloud certification page
- Prerequisites
- None required; 3 or more years of industry experience, including 1 or more years designing and managing solutions on Google Cloud, is recommendedGoogle Cloud certification page
- Validity
- 2 years; renew with Google Skills or the renewal examGoogle Cloud certification page
- Exam guide version
- The guide shows no version or date; the certification page says the exam will soon be updated for recent branding changes.Exam guide
- Sections
- Designing data processing systems (about 22%); ingesting and processing the data (about 25%); storing the data (about 20%); preparing and using data for analysis (about 15%); maintaining and automating data workloads (about 18%)Exam guide
- Passing score
- Not published.Not published by Google Cloud
- Exam code
- Not published.Not published by Google Cloud
- Our practice test
- Single-answer scenario questions only, with our own question count, pass mark and timer. These are not Google's settings.This site
Every question here has exactly one correct answer. If the real exam also uses multiple-select or other types, the facts above say so. Confirm current details with Google Cloud before you register.
What to focus on for the Professional Data Engineer
- Choosing a service by name recognition instead of weighing the constraints in the scenario, such as cost, latency, scale, consistency and operational effort.
- Mixing up look-alike services, such as streaming and batch tools, or warehouse, lake and operational storage.
- Skipping security, governance and reliability details, which can decide between two plausible answers.
- Reading too quickly and missing the one requirement that rules out an option.
- Read the Google Cloud documentation overview for each product the guide names, and take notes on when each one fits.
- Take this free practice test one section at a time, read every explanation, then retake your weakest section.
Sample Professional Data Engineer practice questions
Three questions pulled straight from the bank, with the answer shown. For the timed, no-peeking version, use the quiz above.
Why: Airflow does not provide strong DAG isolation, so Google recommends separate production and test environments to prevent DAG interference. A folder, a pause schedule or extra workers still shares one environment.
Why: Datastream is a serverless change data capture and replication service that synchronizes data with minimal latency. Hourly copies are neither near real time nor code-free, and the other services do not stream changes.
Why: To write data from Dataflow to Bigtable, use the Apache Beam Bigtable I/O connector. A custom service adds code, and Datastream and Dataform do not write Dataflow output to Bigtable.
Source: Dataflow documentation, Write from Dataflow to Bigtable
FAQ
Professional Data Engineer questions, answered
How much does the exam cost and how do I register?
Google Cloud lists the fee as USD 200, plus tax where applicable. Registration and the current price are on the Google Cloud certification page (checked November 2026), so confirm there before you book. Google Cloud certification page.
Is this the real exam?
No. This is a free mock test made of original questions we wrote from Google Cloud's public documentation. It is not the real exam, it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google Cloud, and it cannot promise a pass.
Does the real exam have questions with more than one correct answer?
Yes. Google Cloud describes the exam as multiple choice and multiple select. Every question here has exactly one correct answer, so the format is not identical to the real exam.
Is the timed test the same as the real Professional Data Engineer exam?
No. Ours has 40 questions in 120 minutes, all single-answer, with a 70% practice pass mark we chose ourselves. Google Cloud's own format is in the exam facts.
How should I use this Professional Data Engineer practice test?
Start with quick practice and read every explanation, including for the answers you got right. Then check Where you stand to find your weakest section, practice it again, and finish with a timed test.