Google Cloud Functions provides serverless compute platform for running Node.js code in response to HTTP requests or cloud events without managing servers. As the creator of CoreUI, a widely used open-source UI library, I’ve deployed serverless Node.js functions to Google Cloud throughout my 11 years of backend development. The most straightforward approach is using Functions Framework locally for development and gcloud CLI for deployment to Google Cloud. This method enables rapid serverless deployment, automatic scaling based on traffic, and cost-effective pay-per-invocation billing model.