Google Cloud (GCP) Interview Questions and Answers: 60 Questions from Easy to Hard

gcloud compute instances create render-1 \
  --zone=asia-south1-b \
  --machine-type=n2-standard-8 \
  --provisioning-model=SPOT \
  --instance-termination-action=DELETE

gcloud compute instance-templates create web-tpl \
  --machine-type=e2-medium --tags=web \
  --image-family=debian-12 --image-project=debian-cloud \
  --metadata-from-file=startup-script=startup.sh

gcloud compute instance-groups managed create web-mig \
  --region=asia-south1 --template=web-tpl --size=2

gcloud compute instance-groups managed set-autoscaling web-mig \
  --region=asia-south1 --min-num-replicas=2 \
  --max-num-replicas=10 --target-cpu-utilization=0.6

gcloud compute firewall-rules create allow-iap-ssh \
  --network=prod-vpc --direction=INGRESS --action=ALLOW \
  --rules=tcp:22 --source-ranges=35.235.240.0/20

gcloud compute ssh web-1 --zone=asia-south1-a \
  --tunnel-through-iap

gcloud run services update orders-api \
  --region=asia-south1 \
  --concurrency=40 \
  --min-instances=1 \
  --max-instances=30 \
  --cpu-boost

gcloud run deploy orders-api --region=asia-south1 \
  --image=asia-south1-docker.pkg.dev/my-proj/apps/orders-api:1.5.0 \
  --no-traffic --tag=canary

gcloud run services update-traffic orders-api \
  --region=asia-south1 --to-tags=canary=10

gcloud run services update-traffic orders-api \
  --region=asia-south1 --to-latest

gcloud run deploy orders-api --region=asia-south1 \
  --image=asia-south1-docker.pkg.dev/my-proj/apps/orders-api:1.5.0 \
  --service-account=orders-api@my-proj.iam.gserviceaccount.com \
  --add-cloudsql-instances=my-proj:asia-south1:orders-db \
  --set-secrets=DB_PASS=orders-db-pass:3

{
  "lifecycle": {
    "rule": [
      {
        "action": {"type": "SetStorageClass",
                   "storageClass": "COLDLINE"},
        "condition": {"age": 90,
                      "matchesStorageClass": ["STANDARD"]}
      },
      {
        "action": {"type": "Delete"},
        "condition": {"age": 365}
      }
    ]
  }
}

gcloud storage buckets update gs://invoices-prod \
  --lifecycle-file=rules.json

CREATE TABLE shop.orders (
  order_id STRING,
  customer_id STRING,
  city STRING,
  amount NUMERIC,
  order_ts TIMESTAMP
)
PARTITION BY DATE(order_ts)
CLUSTER BY customer_id, city
OPTIONS (require_partition_filter = TRUE);

bq query --use_legacy_sql=false --dry_run \
  'SELECT city, SUM(amount) FROM shop.orders
   WHERE DATE(order_ts) = "2026-10-31" GROUP BY city'

bq query --use_legacy_sql=false \
  --maximum_bytes_billed=10000000000 \
  'SELECT city, SUM(amount) FROM shop.orders
   WHERE DATE(order_ts) = "2026-10-31" GROUP BY city'

bq head --max_rows=10 shop.orders

gcloud pubsub subscriptions update billing-sub \
  --ack-deadline=120 \
  --dead-letter-topic=order-events-dlq \
  --max-delivery-attempts=5

gcloud pubsub subscriptions create ledger-sub \
  --topic=order-events \
  --enable-message-ordering

gcloud pubsub topics publish order-events \
  --message='{"order_id": "A1002"}' \
  --ordering-key=CUST-42

gcloud sql instances create orders-db \
  --database-version=POSTGRES_16 \
  --edition=ENTERPRISE \
  --tier=db-custom-2-7680 \
  --region=asia-south1 \
  --availability-type=REGIONAL

gcloud sql instances create orders-db-read \
  --master-instance-name=orders-db \
  --region=asia-south1

steps:
  - name: gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker
    args: ['build', '-t',
      'asia-south1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/apps/orders:$SHORT_SHA',
      '.']
  - name: gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker
    args: ['push',
      'asia-south1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/apps/orders:$SHORT_SHA']
  - name: gcr.io/google.com/cloudsdktool/cloud-sdk
    entrypoint: gcloud
    args: ['run', 'deploy', 'orders', '--region=asia-south1',
      '--image=asia-south1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/apps/orders:$SHORT_SHA']

gcloud compute firewall-rules create allow-lb-health-checks \
  --network=prod-vpc --direction=INGRESS --action=ALLOW \
  --rules=tcp:8080 \
  --source-ranges=35.191.0.0/16,130.211.0.0/22 \
  --target-tags=web

gcloud logging metrics create payment_failures \
  --description="Failed payments in orders-api" \
  --log-filter='resource.type="cloud_run_revision"
    AND resource.labels.service_name="orders-api"
    AND jsonPayload.event="payment_failed"'

gcloud secrets create orders-db-pass \
  --replication-policy=automatic
gcloud secrets versions add orders-db-pass --data-file=pass.txt

gcloud secrets add-iam-policy-binding orders-db-pass \
  --member="serviceAccount:orders-api@my-proj.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor"

gcloud iam service-accounts add-iam-policy-binding \
  reports@my-proj.iam.gserviceaccount.com \
  --role=roles/iam.workloadIdentityUser \
  --member="serviceAccount:my-proj.svc.id.goog[billing/reports-ksa]"

kubectl annotate serviceaccount reports-ksa --namespace=billing \
  iam.gke.io/gcp-service-account=reports@my-proj.iam.gserviceaccount.com

SELECT
  l.value AS team,
  service.description AS service,
  ROUND(SUM(cost), 2) AS cost
FROM `billing.gcp_billing_export_v1_XXXXXX`,
  UNNEST(labels) AS l
WHERE l.key = 'team'
  AND invoice.month = '202610'
GROUP BY team, service
ORDER BY cost DESC;