Data Analytics
SQL for Non-Engineers
A two-day workshop for analysts, product managers, marketers, business analysts, ops practitioners, and adjacent professionals who need to write their own SQL instead of waiting for the data team. SQL fundamentals through practitioner-level joins, aggregations, window functions, CTEs, and the practical query-writing patterns that turn 'I have a question for the data' into 'I have an answer'. Plain-language framing — no engineering background, no command-line.
- Format
- Live virtual, in-person, or private on-site
- Duration
- 2 days
- Level
- Introductory
- From
- $1295.00
About this course
Course overview
Stop waiting for the data team. Write your own queries.
SQL is the single most leveraged skill for non-engineers in modern knowledge work — and the one most consistently underestimated. The first time you can answer your own analytical question instead of opening a ticket and waiting two weeks, the calculus of every meeting changes. This workshop teaches the practitioner-level SQL that actually does that: schemas, filtering, aggregation, joins, window functions, CTEs, and the cohort/attribution/retention patterns that show up in every dashboard.
Hands-on against a real practice database from the first hour. Day 1 gets you fluent in single-table queries, aggregation, and joins. Day 2 covers window functions, CTEs, and real analytical patterns (cohort retention, conversion funnels, attribution queries). Plain language; no math, no theory, no command line. Tooling-pluralist — runs against PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, BigQuery, Snowflake, or Redshift.
Learning outcomes
What you'll learn
Every module is tied to an outcome you can bring back to your team the next day.
- Read a database schema (tables, columns, primary keys, foreign keys, data types) and figure out where the data you need lives
- Write SELECT queries with filtering (WHERE), ordering (ORDER BY), and aggregation (GROUP BY, HAVING) for everyday analytical questions
- Join data across multiple tables using INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, FULL, CROSS, and SELF joins — and choose the right one for the question
- Apply window functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK, LAG, LEAD, running totals, moving averages) for analytical questions plain GROUP BY can't answer
- Use CTEs (WITH clauses) and subqueries to break complex questions into readable, debuggable steps
- Apply data-quality checks — missing values, duplicates, type mismatches, sample-size thresholds — before relying on a query result
- Read the SQL the data team writes and ask informed questions of dashboards, dbt models, and ad-hoc queries
Audience
Who it's for
- Business analysts, product managers, and operations leads who want to query data themselves
- Marketers and growth practitioners running their own attribution, cohort, and retention queries
- Customer success managers, account executives, and post-sales teams analyzing usage data
- Founders, consultants, and freelancers without a data team to lean on
- Career-transitioners moving toward data-adjacent roles (analyst, BI developer, data PM)
Course structure
Syllabus
A structured path from core concepts to applied practice.
Day 1 — Fundamentals, Filtering, Aggregation, Joins
- Schemas, tables, ERDs, tooling (TablePlus / DBeaver / Snowflake / BigQuery / dbt)
- SELECT, WHERE, NULL handling, IN/BETWEEN/LIKE, ORDER BY, LIMIT, DISTINCT, aliases
- Aggregation: GROUP BY, COUNT/SUM/AVG/MIN/MAX, HAVING vs WHERE
- Joins: INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, FULL, CROSS, SELF; multi-table join paths
- Practice Lab: real analytical questions answered against a real practice database
Day 2 — Window Functions, CTEs, Real-World Patterns
- Window functions: ROW_NUMBER, RANK, LAG, LEAD, running totals, moving averages, percentiles
- CTEs (WITH clauses), correlated/non-correlated subqueries, recursive CTEs
- Cohort analysis, retention curves, conversion funnels, time-since-event queries
- Pivoting/unpivoting (CASE WHEN), date arithmetic, fiscal-period and time-zone handling
- Validation, sanity-checks, and the cohort-retention/attribution capstone workshop
Public cohorts
Upcoming sessions
Secure your seat in a live, instructor-led cohort. Private team deliveries available on request.
No public cohorts on the calendar yet.
We run this course as a private team cohort on demand, or you can be the first to know when the next public date drops.
Frequently asked questions
Still have questions?
Do I need any programming background?
Which SQL dialect does the course use?
Will I be able to use SQL at work after this?
How is this different from Data Literacy for Managers?
Can this be delivered as a private cohort?
Keep exploring
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Bring this training to your team
We deliver private cohorts in-person and online, tailored to your operating context.