How hard is the Professional Data Engineer exam? +
The hard part is choosing between similar services. Ingestion and processing, about 25% of the exam, pits Dataflow, Dataproc, Pub/Sub, Datastream and Data Fusion against each other. Storage, about 20%, spans BigQuery, Bigtable, Spanner, AlloyDB, Cloud SQL, Firestore and BigLake. Governance with Dataplex and Analytics Hub is now core content as well.
What is the Professional Data Engineer exam format? +
The standard exam is 2 hours with 40-50 multiple-choice and multiple-select questions, in English or Japanese. You can take it online with remote proctoring or at a Pearson VUE testing center. With fewer questions than many professional exams and long scenarios, each miss weighs more.
How much does the Professional Data Engineer exam cost? +
The registration fee is $200, plus tax where applicable. There are no formal prerequisites. Google recommends 3+ years of industry experience, including at least 1 year designing and managing solutions on Google Cloud. Candidates with less experience can still pass, but should allow 8-12 weeks of preparation with hands-on work in BigQuery, Dataflow and Pub/Sub.
How long is the certification valid and how do I renew it? +
The certification is valid for two years. You can renew with a 1-hour, 20-question renewal exam for $100, through designated Google Skills courses or badges, or by retaking the standard exam. The renewal exam requires an active certification within the renewal eligibility period. Renewal through Google Skills extends the certification by one year.
What does the Professional Data Engineer exam cover? +
The five assessed areas are designing data processing systems, ingesting and processing data, storing data, preparing and using data for analysis, and maintaining and automating data workloads. Google notes the exam guide is the best reference for current product names, since branding changes are rolling in.
What is the retake policy? +
If you fail, you wait 14 days before retaking. A second failure means a 60-day wait, and a third means waiting a year. Each attempt costs the full registration fee. With only 40-50 questions, a couple of weak areas can decide the result, so use the waiting period to target them with scenario practice.