GCP – Prove your expertise with our Professional Security Operations Engineer certification

Security leaders are clear about their priorities: After AI, cloud security is the top training topic for decision-makers. As threats against cloud workloads become more sophisticated, organizations are looking for highly-skilled professionals to help defend against these attacks.

To help organizations meet their need for experts who can manage a modern security team’s advanced tools, Google Cloud’s new Professional Security Operations Engineer (PSOE) certification can help train specialists to detect and respond to new and emerging threats.

Unlock your potential as a security operations expert

Earning a Google Cloud certification can be a powerful catalyst for career advancement. Eight in 10 learners report that having a Google Cloud certification contributes to faster career advancement, and 85% say that cloud certifications equip them with the skills to fill in-demand roles, according to an Ipsos study published in 2025 and commissioned by Google Cloud.

Foresite, a leading Google Cloud managed security service provider (MSSP), said that the certification has been instrumental in helping them provide security excellence to their clients.

“As a leader at Foresite, our commitment is to deliver unparalleled security outcomes for our clients using the power of Google Cloud. The Google Cloud Professional Security Operations Engineer (PSOE) certification is fundamental to that mission. For us, it’s the definitive validation that our engineers have mastered the advanced Google Security Operations platform we use to protect our clients’ businesses. Having a team of PSOE-certified experts provides our clients with direct assurance of our capabilities and expertise. It solidifies our credibility as a premier Google Cloud MSSP and gives us a decisive edge in the market. Ultimately, it’s a benchmark of the excellence we deliver daily,” said Brad Thomas, director, Security Engineering. 

The PSOE certification can help validate practical skills needed to protect a company’s data and infrastructure in real-world scenarios, a key ingredient for professional success. It also can help security operations engineers demonstrate their ability to directly address evolving and daily challenges.

Gain a decisive edge with certified security talent

For organizations, including MSSPs and other Google Cloud partners, this certification is a powerful way to help ensure that your security professionals are qualified to effectively implement, respond to, and remediate security events using Google Cloud’s suite of solutions. 

Hiring managers are increasingly looking for a specific skill set. The Ipsos study also found that eight in 10 leaders prefer to recruit and hire professionals who hold cloud certifications, seeing them as a strong indicator of expertise.

“We are excited about Google’s new Professional Security Operations Engineer certification, which will help Accenture demonstrate our leading expertise in security engineering and operations to clients. This validation is important because it gives our clients confidence in knowing Accenture has certified professionals with structured training as they choose the best service partner for their security transformations. For our teams, this new certification offers a clear path for professional development and career advancement. Google’s Professional Security Operations Engineer certification will enable Accenture to support clients better as they successfully adopt and get the most out of the Google Security Operations and Security Command Center platforms,” said Rex Thexton, chief technology officer, Accenture Cybersecurity. 

Demonstrate comprehensive expertise across Google Cloud Security tools

A Google Cloud-certified PSOE can effectively use Google Cloud security solutions to detect, monitor, investigate, and respond to security threats across an enterprise environment. This role encompasses identity, workloads, services, infrastructure, and more. 

Plus, PSOEs can perform critical tasks such as writing detection rules, remediating misconfigurations, investigating threats, and developing orchestration workflows. The PSOE certification validates the candidate’s abilities with Google Cloud security tools and services, including:

• Google Security Operations

• Google Threat Intelligence

• Security Command Center

Specifically, the exam assesses ability across six key domains:

• Platform operations (~14%): Enhancing detection and response with the right telemetry sources and tools, and configuring access authorization.

• Data management (~14%): Ingesting logs for security tooling and identifying a baseline of user, asset, and entity context.

• Threat hunting (~19%): Performing threat hunting across environments and using threat intelligence for threat hunting.

• Detection engineering (~22%): Developing and implementing mechanisms to detect risks and identify threats, and using threat intelligence for detection. 

• Incident response (~21%): Containing and investigating security incidents; building, implementing, and using response playbooks; and implementing the case management lifecycle.

• Observability (~10%): Building and maintaining dashboards and reports to provide insights, and configuring health monitoring and alerting.

While there are no formal prerequisites to take the exam, we recommend that candidates have:

• At least three years of security industry experience.

• At least one year of hands-on experience using Google Cloud security tooling.

The certification is relevant for experienced professionals, including those in advanced career stages and roles, such as security architects.

Your path to security operations starts here

To prepare for the exam, Google Cloud offers resources that include online training and hands-on labs. The official Professional Security Operations Engineer Exam Guide provides a complete list of topics covered, helping candidates align their skills with the exam content. Candidates can also start preparing through the recommended learning path.

You can learn more and register for the Professional Security Operations Engineer certification today.