Snowflake and DBT Preparation Guide
This guide is designed to help you quickly learn Snowflake and DBT in 1 week. Focus on the
essentials, practice key concepts, and gain confidence for your client interview.
Day 1-2: Learn Snowflake Basics
1. Snowflake Architecture
- Understand Snowflake's architecture: storage, compute, and services layers.
- Learn about virtual warehouses for compute and databases/schemas for storage.
2. Data Loading
- Practice loading data using COPY INTO from internal/external stages.
- Example:
COPY INTO my_table
FROM @my_stage
FILE_FORMAT = (TYPE = 'CSV');
3. Basic SQL in Snowflake
- Learn to create databases, schemas, and tables.
- Practice SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE queries.
4. Snowflake Functions
- Explore built-in functions (e.g., DATE, STRING, AGGREGATE).
Day 3-4: Learn DBT Basics
1. What is DBT?
- Understand DBT as a transformation tool that builds SQL models.
2. Set Up DBT
- Install DBT CLI or use DBT Cloud.
- Configure the profiles.yml file for Snowflake connection.
3. Create Models
- Write SQL queries in .sql files inside the models/ folder.
- Use SELECT queries to transform raw data.
4. Seeds and Snapshots
- Load static data with seeds (CSV files).
- Use snapshots to track historical changes in your data.
5. Run DBT Commands
- dbt run: Execute models.
- dbt test: Test data quality.
- dbt seed: Load static data.
Day 5-6: Advanced Snowflake and DBT
1. Snowflake Best Practices
- Use warehouses efficiently (scale up/down as needed).
- Partition large tables for better performance.
2. Incremental Models in DBT
- Learn to process only new or updated data using incremental materialization.
- Example configuration in dbt_project.yml:
{{ config(materialized='incremental') }}
3. Use Macros in DBT
- Automate repetitive tasks using Jinja and macros.
- Example:
{% macro filter_active_users(table_name) %}
SELECT * FROM {{ table_name }} WHERE is_active = TRUE
{% endmacro %}
4. Testing and Documentation
- Write tests for your models (e.g., unique, not_null).
- Generate and view documentation using dbt docs.
Day 7: Final Review and Practice
1. Review Key Concepts
- Go through Snowflake basics, DBT models, seeds, snapshots, and macros.
2. Practice End-to-End Workflow
- Load raw data into Snowflake.
- Create DBT models to transform the data.
- Test and document your transformations.
3. Prepare for the Interview
- Be ready to explain:
- Snowflake architecture and key features.
- How you created models, seeds, or snapshots in DBT.
- Examples of SQL queries and transformations you wrote.