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Google Cloud Architect: Service-by-Service

A provider-deep tour of Google Cloud Platform for solutions and cloud architects. Walks the full service landscape - compute, storage, databases, networking, identity (IAM), data and analytics (BigQuery) - then layers on infrastructure-as-code, containers (GKE), operations, security and the Architecture Framework, and finishes with the architecture deep-dives and behavioral themes GCP architect loops grade against.

Google Cloud Solutions ArchitectSenior~50h8 sections22 items
Section 1 of 8

The Google Cloud service landscape

Build a working map of the core families: compute (Compute Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, GKE, App Engine), storage (Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk, Filestore), databases (Cloud SQL, Spanner, Bigtable, Firestore, Memorystore), analytics (BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataproc, Pub/Sub), and the glue (Pub/Sub, Workflows, Eventarc). This category is the spine of the path.

  1. 01MCQGoogle Cloud questions (82 suggested)Multiple choice category
Section 2 of 8

Networking and content delivery

Anchor the GCP networking model: VPC (global by default), subnets, firewall rules, Cloud NAT, Shared VPC, VPC peering, Cloud Interconnect, Cloud DNS, and Cloud CDN / global load balancing before the design rounds.

  1. 01MCQNetworking questions (20 suggested)Multiple choice category
  2. 02DesignDesign a CDN with Edge Compute (CloudFront / Cloudflare)System Design · Hard
  3. 03DesignDesign a Load Balancer (L4 vs L7, Envoy / HAProxy / ALB)System Design · Hard
Section 3 of 8

Data stores and analytics

Work through relational (Cloud SQL) vs globally-consistent (Spanner) vs wide-column (Bigtable) vs document (Firestore) trade-offs, then the analytics path that GCP is known for - BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub - and Memorystore caching.

  1. 01MCQDatabases questions (20 suggested)Multiple choice category
  2. 02DesignDesign an Analytics Pipeline (Kafka / Spark / Warehouse)System Design · Hard
  3. 03DesignDesign a Distributed Cache (Memcached / Redis Cluster)System Design · Hard
Section 4 of 8

Infrastructure as Code and containers

Build fluency in declarative provisioning (Terraform is the GCP standard; also Config Connector / Deployment Manager) and the container stack (GKE, Cloud Run) that runs most modern GCP workloads.

  1. 01MCQTerraform questions (25 suggested)Multiple choice category
  2. 02MCQKubernetes questions (20 suggested)Multiple choice category
Section 5 of 8

Operations, observability and DevOps

Cover Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Logging (the Operations Suite, formerly Stackdriver), Cloud Build / Cloud Deploy pipelines, and the deployment-safety patterns architects bake in.

  1. 01MCQDevOps questions (20 suggested)Multiple choice category
  2. 02DesignDesign an Observability Platform (Metrics, Logs, Traces)System Design · Hard
Section 6 of 8

Security, governance and the Architecture Framework

The pillars architects are graded on: IAM least privilege, Cloud KMS, the resource hierarchy (Organization / Folders / Projects) and Organization Policy for governance, plus the Google Cloud Architecture Framework (operational excellence, security, reliability, cost, performance).

  1. 01MCQSecurity questions (20 suggested)Multiple choice category
  2. 02MCQCloud Architecture questions (25 suggested)Multiple choice category
Section 7 of 8

Architect deep-dives (system design)

Bounded designs that exercise the conversations GCP architects lead - decoupling with Pub/Sub, consistency across services, throttling, and payment-grade reliability.

  1. 01DesignDesign a Distributed Message Queue (Kafka deep-dive)System Design · Hard
  2. 02DesignDesign Distributed Transactions (2PC, Saga, TCC)System Design · Hard
  3. 03DesignDesign a Rate Limiter (API Throttling)System Design · Medium
  4. 04DesignDesign a Payments / Checkout System (Stripe-style)System Design · Hard
Section 8 of 8

Behavioral: influence and judgment

Architect rounds screen for driving decisions across teams you don't manage and making pragmatic cost/resilience trade-offs. Have a story per theme with concrete business impact.

  1. 01BehavioralLeadership Without AuthorityBehavioral · General
  2. 02BehavioralDealing with AmbiguityBehavioral · General
  3. 03BehavioralFrugality (Amazon Leadership Principle)Behavioral · Amazon LP
  4. 04BehavioralDive Deep (Amazon Leadership Principle)Behavioral · Amazon LP
  5. 05BehavioralLearn and Be Curious (Amazon Leadership Principle)Behavioral · Amazon LP

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