What is dbt
A tool for transforming data inside a warehouse using SQL, with the versioning and testing habits of software engineering.
In plain terms
dbt lets analysts write warehouse transformations as plain SQL files, then adds what software teams expect: version control, tests, documentation, and repeatable builds. It defined the analytics engineer role and anchors the modern ELT stack, usually paired with Snowflake or BigQuery. The name is styled lowercase.
What it tells you about a developer
dbt is the clearest single marker of an analytics engineer. Someone fluent in it models business data in SQL with an engineer's discipline, and typically works downstream of the data engineers who build ingestion pipelines. For a req asking for metrics, dashboards, and clean warehouse tables, dbt experience is a direct hit.
Facts
- Type
- Framework
- Released
- 2016
- Used in
- Data engineering