I passed the GCP Associate Cloud Engineer exam.  (As a side note I’m almost certain this certification will someday be renamed per the use of the word “Engineer” is blasphemy to some.)

I reflected on some of the factors that made me a successful candidate:

1) Previous general experience working in IT/ Infrastructure/ Cloud

2) Experience working specifically with GCP over the last year

3) The GCP free tier is fantastic for labs and becoming familiar with products

4) Studying – there were some gaps in my experience with certain topics, specifically Networking and Kubernetes

5) Test taking skills - I made a lot of “educated” guesses

6) Luck

The test was wide but not deep.  But that’s probably necessary given the number of products and features of GCP.  I’m happy to have passed but there’s still plenty to learn!