Preface

There is too much information – too many options and plans. Things are complicated. We live in a world where there is more and more information, which can be as problematic as too little information, and I’m aware that this condition applies when people want to start doing data engineering in the cloud, specifically Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in this book.

When people want to embark on a career in data, there are so many different roles whose definitions sometimes vary from one company to the next.

When someone chooses to be a data engineer, there are many technology options – cloud versus non-cloud, a big data database versus a transactional database, a self-managed service versus a managed service, and so on.

Upon deciding to use the cloud on GCP, you will find that the public documentation contains a wide variety of product options and tutorials.

In this book, instead of adding further dimensions to the data engineering and GCP products, the main goal is to help you narrow down the information. This book will help you focus on all the important concepts and components from the vast array of information available on the internet.

The guidance and exercises are based on the writer’s experience in the field. By reading the book and following exercises, you will learn the most relevant and clear path to start and boost your career in data engineering using GCP.

Readers of the first edition have consistently reported using the book to successfully achieve GCP certification and launch careers as GCP data engineers. Building on this proven approach, in this second edition, we’ve updated all information to reflect the latest GCP landscape, while preserving the book’s successful format.