PCSE Practice Question: Configuring Access Within a Cloud Solution Environment
An organization wants to grant a DevOps team the ability to create and manage service accounts in a specific project, but prevent them from deleting existing service accounts or managing IAM policies. Which IAM role should be assigned to the team?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
roles/iam.serviceAccountAdmin
The roles/iam.serviceAccountAdmin role grants permissions to create, update, and delete service accounts, but not to manage IAM policies for them. The basic role (Editor) is too permissive, ServiceAccountUser only allows using existing service accounts, and ServiceAccountKeyAdmin focuses on key management.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
roles/iam.serviceAccountUser
Why it's wrong here
ServiceAccountUser allows using service accounts (e.g., actAs) but not creating or deleting them.
- ✓
roles/iam.serviceAccountAdmin
Why this is correct
ServiceAccountAdmin includes permissions to create, update, and delete service accounts, but not manage IAM policies.
- ✗
roles/iam.serviceAccountKeyAdmin
Why it's wrong here
ServiceAccountKeyAdmin manages keys but not the service accounts themselves.
- ✗
roles/editor
Why it's wrong here
Editor grants broad permissions to all resources, including the ability to manage IAM policies, which is not desired.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCSE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PCSE exam.