Ultimate PostgreSQL Bootcamp: Go from Beginner to Expert
ORMs hide the queries that actually run in production. Learn PostgreSQL from indexes to query plans, write SQL your DBA would approve, and fix the n+1 and dashboard-timeout bugs that ship to real users.
What You Will Learn
- ✓Write complex SQL queries that answer real business questions
- ✓Use JOINs, subqueries, CTEs, and window functions confidently
- ✓Build cohort analysis and customer segmentation reports
- ✓Optimize slow queries with indexes, EXPLAIN plans, and partitioning
- ✓Create stored procedures and triggers for production systems
Who Is This For
- Software engineers who who avoid writing SQL and rely on ORMs but want to understand what happens under the hood
- Backend developers who who can write basic queries but struggle with JOINs, window functions, and performance tuning
- Data-curious engineers who who want to build dashboards and reports without waiting for the data team
Curriculum
Welcome and SQL foundations
5 lessons
Aggregation and grouping
4 lessons
Conditional logic and joins
5 lessons
Subqueries, CTEs, and set operations
4 lessons
Date and string functions
4 lessons
Window functions
5 lessons
Advanced analytics
4 lessons
PostgreSQL power features
4 lessons
Views, indexes, and query performance
5 lessons
Schema design and partitioning
4 lessons
Transactions, procedures, and triggers
3 lessons
Course finale
3 lessons
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do I need SQL experience?
- No. We start from your first SELECT statement. If you have never written SQL before, this is the right starting point.
- What database do I need?
- PostgreSQL via Docker. The workshop includes Docker Compose setup so you are running queries within minutes.
- Is this just theory?
- No. Every lesson runs against a real 100k+ order dataset from a Brazilian e-commerce platform. You write real queries, not textbook examples.
- How long does it take?
- About 16 hours of hands-on work. Go at your own pace, the content is always available.
Ultimate PostgreSQL Bootcamp: Go from Beginner to Expert
ORMs hide the queries that actually run in production. Learn PostgreSQL from indexes to query plans, write SQL your DBA would approve, and fix the n+1 and dashboard-timeout bugs that ship to real users.
Where engineers learn to query like DBAs
The ORM trap. Sound familiar?
The ORM black box
You use Prisma or Hibernate for everything. When a query is slow, you have absolutely no idea what SQL is actually running against the database.
The n+1 nightmare
Your API takes 5 seconds to load because your ORM is making 400 separate database calls under the hood instead of one efficient JOIN.
The dashboard timeout
The product team asked for a simple cohort analysis dashboard. Your query takes 45 seconds to run and locks up the database.
The analytics bottleneck
Every time business needs a custom report, they have to wait two weeks for the data engineering team because you don't know how to write window functions.
The fix isn't tweaking your ORM.
It's dropping down to raw SQL.
Senior engineers aren't better because they know more syntax. They're better because they've:
ORMs are for CRUD. Raw SQL is for engineering.
No toy datasets.
100,000+ real orders.
We don't use the "employees" or "dvdrental" databases from 1998. You will write queries against the Olist dataset: 100k real Brazilian e-commerce orders, 9 interconnected tables, and real business questions to answer.
The database maturity path
From select to production optimization.
Query fundamentals
Master aggregations, groupings, and multi-table operations with exact precision.
Analytics & framing
Implement window functions, CTEs, and cohort analysis for complex business logic.
Performance tuning
Read EXPLAIN plans, implement composite indexes, and optimize slow queries.
Architecture
Design schemas, implement table partitioning, and write production-grade stored procedures.
From SELECT to Production PostgreSQL.
Welcome and SQL foundations
Your first queries against 100k+ real e-commerce orders.
Welcome & database setup
Set up your environment and load the Olist e-commerce dataset.
Your first select
Learn to query tables with SELECT, LIMIT, and column aliases.
Filtering with where
Filter rows with comparison operators, AND/OR, IN, BETWEEN, LIKE, and IS NULL.
Sorting and deduplication
Control result order with ORDER BY and remove duplicates with DISTINCT.
Foundations checkpoint
Prove your SQL fundamentals mastery.
Aggregation and grouping
Transform raw rows into business insights.
Aggregate functions
Summarize data with COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, and MAX.
Group by essentials
Split data into groups and aggregate each one.
Having and aggregate filtering
Filter groups after aggregation with HAVING.
Aggregation checkpoint
Prove your aggregation mastery.
Conditional logic and joins
Add intelligence with CASE and connect your entire dataset.
Case expressions
Add conditional logic to your queries with CASE WHEN.
Inner join and left join
Combine tables with the two most important JOIN types.
Right, full outer, and cross joins
Complete the JOIN family with RIGHT, FULL OUTER, and CROSS joins.
Self joins and Multi-table queries
Join a table to itself and chain multiple JOINs across the schema.
Beginner level complete!
Review and celebrate your SQL foundations.
Subqueries, CTEs, and set operations
Compose complex queries from simple building blocks.
Subqueries
Nest queries inside other queries for powerful filtering and comparison.
Common table expressions (CTEs)
Write readable multi-step queries with WITH clauses.
Set operations
Combine query results with UNION, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT.
Intermediate checkpoint
Prove your intermediate SQL mastery.
Date and string functions
Master time-series analysis and text manipulation.
Date functions and time series
Extract, truncate, and calculate with dates and timestamps.
String functions and type casting
Clean and transform text data with UPPER, LOWER, CONCAT, SUBSTRING, and type casting.
String practice and translation
Apply string functions to real data: translate categories, clean product names, and handle NULLs with COALESCE.
Date & string checkpoint
Prove your date and string function mastery.
Window functions
The most powerful analytical tool in SQL.
Window functions and row_number
Understand the OVER clause, PARTITION BY, and ROW_NUMBER to rank rows without losing detail.
Rank, dense_rank, and ntile
Handle ties with RANK and DENSE_RANK, and divide rows into buckets with NTILE.
Lag, lead, and running totals
Access previous and next rows with LAG/LEAD and build running totals.
Moving averages and window frames
Build moving averages with custom window frames and understand ROWS vs RANGE.
Window functions checkpoint
Prove your window function mastery.
Advanced analytics
Real business analytics: cohort, RFM, funnel, and CLV.
Cohort analysis
Group customers by first purchase and track retention over time.
Rfm customer segmentation
Score customers by Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value.
Funnel analysis and clv
Track conversion funnels and calculate customer lifetime value.
Analytics checkpoint
Prove your advanced analytics mastery.
PostgreSQL power features
Unlock PostgreSQL-specific superpowers beyond standard SQL.
PostgreSQL data types and casting
Master PostgreSQL-specific types: NUMERIC, ARRAY, JSONB, and type casting.
Filter, generate_series, and string_agg
Use FILTER for conditional aggregates, GENERATE_SERIES for zero-fill, and STRING_AGG for concatenation.
Regex and PostgreSQL practice
Use PostgreSQL regex operators and practice FILTER, GENERATE_SERIES, and COALESCE together.
Pg power checkpoint
Prove your PostgreSQL-specific knowledge.
Views, indexes, and query performance
Make your queries fast and your logic reusable.
Views and materialized views
Save complex queries as reusable virtual tables.
B-tree and composite indexes
Speed up queries with B-tree and composite indexes.
Partial and expression indexes
Optimize further with partial indexes, expression indexes, and index trade-offs.
Explain analyze and query optimization
Read query plans and fix performance bottlenecks.
Performance checkpoint
Prove your query performance mastery.
Schema design and partitioning
Design databases that scale from thousands to billions of rows.
Normalization and schema design
Understand 1NF, 2NF, 3NF and when to denormalize.
Star schema and data warehousing
Design analytics-optimized star schemas with fact and dimension tables.
Table partitioning
Split large tables into partitions for faster queries.
Schema checkpoint
Prove your schema design mastery.
Transactions, procedures, and triggers
Write safe concurrent code and automate with server-side logic.
Transactions and concurrency
Group operations with BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK and understand locking.
Stored procedures and triggers
Write PL/pgSQL functions and automate with triggers.
Production pg checkpoint
Prove your production PostgreSQL mastery.
Course finale
Prove your mastery and plan your next steps.
SQL mastery speed round
Test your knowledge under time pressure.
SQL mastery final checkpoint
A comprehensive checkpoint spanning every phase. Score 75% to pass.
What's Next and Celebration
Plan your continued SQL journey and celebrate your achievement.
Workshop Curriculum
What you'll build in this hands-on workshop.
Amateurs rely on ORMs. Engineers write SQL.
Basic querying is easy.
Anyone can write `SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = true`.
Production engineering is hard:
- Diagnose a sequential scan on a 50-million row table
- Optimize a query that requires sorting and filtering on multiple columns
- Write a recursive CTE to traverse a hierarchical category tree
- Partition time-series data without downtime
Stop treating the database like a black box. Take control.
Learn From Someone Who Actually Does This
I am the Cofounder of AEOsome.com and Chief Mentor at learnwithparam.com, with 15+ years of software engineering experience building production systems.
"Most engineers are not blocked by ability, but by lack of real system ownership."
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need SQL experience?
What database do I need?
Is this just theory?
How long does it take?
16 hours from now:
Stop fearing the database. Start engineering it.
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