diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 2ac4778046..97bf2b17f6 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@
     <avro.version>1.8.2</avro.version>
     <bigquery.connector.hadoop2.version>hadoop2-1.0.0</bigquery.connector.hadoop2.version>
     <commons.codec.version>1.4</commons.codec.version>
-    <cdap.version>6.7.0</cdap.version>
+    <cdap.version>6.8.0-SNAPSHOT</cdap.version>
     <cdap.plugin.version>2.10.0-SNAPSHOT</cdap.plugin.version>
     <dropwizard.metrics-core.version>3.2.6</dropwizard.metrics-core.version>
     <flogger.system.backend.version>0.3.1</flogger.system.backend.version>
diff --git a/src/main/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySink.java b/src/main/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySink.java
index f9a5800bea..064b0a3141 100644
--- a/src/main/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySink.java
+++ b/src/main/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySink.java
@@ -161,6 +161,12 @@ void initSQLEngineOutput(BatchSinkContext context,
                            String tableName,
                            @Nullable Schema tableSchema,
                            FailureCollector collector) {
+    // Sink Pushdown is not supported if the sink schema is not defined.
+    if (tableSchema == null) {
+      LOG.debug("BigQuery SQL Engine Output was not initialized. Schema was empty.");
+      return;
+    }
+
     List<BigQueryTableFieldSchema> fields = BigQuerySinkUtils.getBigQueryTableFields(bigQuery, tableName, tableSchema,
       getConfig().isAllowSchemaRelaxation(),
       config.getDatasetProject(), config.getDataset(), config.isTruncateTableSet(), collector);
@@ -175,7 +181,7 @@ void initSQLEngineOutput(BatchSinkContext context,
     arguments
       .put(BigQueryWrite.SQL_OUTPUT_JOB_ID, jobId + "_write")
       .put(BigQueryWrite.SQL_OUTPUT_CONFIG, GSON.toJson(config))
-      .put(BigQueryWrite.SQL_OUTPUT_SCHEMA, tableSchema != null ? GSON.toJson(tableSchema) : null)
+      .put(BigQueryWrite.SQL_OUTPUT_SCHEMA, GSON.toJson(tableSchema))
       .put(BigQueryWrite.SQL_OUTPUT_FIELDS, GSON.toJson(fieldNames));
 
     context.addOutput(new SQLEngineOutput(outputName,
diff --git a/src/test/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySinkTest.java b/src/test/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySinkTest.java
index a239cfbc87..e8eae1995e 100644
--- a/src/test/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySinkTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/io/cdap/plugin/gcp/bigquery/sink/BigQuerySinkTest.java
@@ -43,10 +43,13 @@
 
 import java.util.List;
 
+import static org.mockito.ArgumentMatchers.any;
 import static org.mockito.ArgumentMatchers.anyInt;
 import static org.mockito.ArgumentMatchers.anyString;
 import static org.mockito.Mockito.mock;
+import static org.mockito.Mockito.never;
 import static org.mockito.Mockito.times;
+import static org.mockito.Mockito.verify;
 import static org.mockito.Mockito.when;
 
 /**
@@ -87,19 +90,21 @@ public void testBigQuerySinkInvalidConfig() {
 
   @Test
   public void testBigQueryTimePartitionConfig() {
-    Schema schema = Schema.recordOf("record",
-            Schema.Field.of("id", Schema.of(Schema.Type.LONG)),
-            Schema.Field.of("name", Schema.of(Schema.Type.STRING)),
-            Schema.Field.of("price", Schema.of(Schema.Type.DOUBLE)),
-            Schema.Field.of("dt", Schema.nullableOf(Schema.of(Schema.LogicalType.DATE))),
-            Schema.Field.of("bytedata", Schema.of(Schema.Type.BYTES)),
-            Schema.Field.of("timestamp",
-                    Schema.nullableOf(Schema.of(Schema.LogicalType.TIMESTAMP_MICROS))));
+    Schema schema =
+      Schema.recordOf("record",
+                      Schema.Field.of("id", Schema.of(Schema.Type.LONG)),
+                      Schema.Field.of("name", Schema.of(Schema.Type.STRING)),
+                      Schema.Field.of("price", Schema.of(Schema.Type.DOUBLE)),
+                      Schema.Field.of("dt", Schema.nullableOf(Schema.of(Schema.LogicalType.DATE))),
+                      Schema.Field.of("bytedata", Schema.of(Schema.Type.BYTES)),
+                      Schema.Field.of("timestamp",
+                                      Schema.nullableOf(Schema.of(Schema.LogicalType.TIMESTAMP_MICROS))));
 
-    BigQuerySinkConfig config = new BigQuerySinkConfig("44", "ds", "tb", "bucket", schema.toString(),
-            "TIME", 0L, 100L, 10L, null);
+    BigQuerySinkConfig config =
+      new BigQuerySinkConfig("44", "ds", "tb", "bucket", schema.toString(),
+                             "TIME", 0L, 100L, 10L, null);
     config.partitionByField = "dt";
-    
+
     MockFailureCollector collector = new MockFailureCollector("bqsink");
     config.validate(collector);
     Assert.assertEquals(0, collector.getValidationFailures().size());
@@ -382,4 +387,19 @@ public void testDatasetWithSpecialCharacters() {
     Assert.assertEquals("new_table_2020", multiSink.sanitizeOutputName("new!table?2020"));
     Assert.assertEquals("new_table_2020", multiSink.sanitizeOutputName("new^table|2020"));
   }
+
+  @Test
+  public void testInitSQLEngineOutputDoesNotInitOutputWithNullSchema() throws Exception {
+    BatchSinkContext sinkContext = mock(BatchSinkContext.class);
+    MockFailureCollector collector = new MockFailureCollector("bqsink");
+
+    BigQuerySinkConfig config =
+      new BigQuerySinkConfig("testmetric", "ds", "tb", "bkt", null,
+                             null, null, null, null, null);
+    BigQuery bigQueryMock = mock(BigQuery.class);
+
+    BigQuerySink sink = new BigQuerySink(config);
+    sink.initSQLEngineOutput(sinkContext, bigQueryMock, "sink", "sink", "table", null, collector);
+    verify(sinkContext, never()).addOutput(any());
+  }
 }