The Complete dbt Bootcamp: Zero to Hero + Certification Prep

Become a dbt professional from scratch with this single course solving a real-world problem step by step, covering both theory and hands-on practice. Whether you want to level up your analytics engineering skills or earn the dbt Analytics Engineering Certification, this course takes you all the way: Zero to Hero.

In a hurry? The basic and intermediate topics are compressed to the first 3-4 hours of the course.

Want to get Certified? The course now covers every topic required in the 2026 Analytics Engineering Certification Exam and features a sample certification test.

This is the MOST COMPLETE, CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED independent dbt course in the world, now fully aligned with the 2026 dbt Certification exam. Every certification topic is covered in depth. Not planning to get certified? No problem - the same hands-on lessons make you job-ready either way.

Delivered by an instructor with 20+ years of Data Engineering experience. This is the TOP RATED and BESTSELLER dbt course on Udemy.

"Fantastic course. Well-chosen examples perfectly illustrate the many features that are covered. The pacing is spot on and it is easy to replicate the examples."

"Excellent course! Edit: I managed to pass the dbt certification exam. I couldn't have done it without your help! Again, it's an awesome course!"

"I love how you're explaining everything at just the right level!"

The structure of the course is designed to have a top-down approach. It starts with the Analytics Engineering Theory - all you need to know to put dbt (Data Build Tool) in context and to have an understanding of how it fits into the modern data stack. We start with the big picture; then, we go deeper and deeper. Once you learn about the pieces, we will shift to the technicalities - a practical section - which will focus on putting together the dbt “puzzle”. The practical section will cover each and every single dbt feature present today through the construction of a complete, real-world project; Airbnb. This presents an opportunity for us to show you which features should be used at what stage in a given project, and you will see how dbt is used in the industry.

PRACTICAL SECTION:

The practical section will go through a real-world Airbnb project where you will master the ins and outs of dbt! We put special focus on getting everyone up and ready before the technical deep dive; hence we will start off by setting up our Development Environment:

• MAC Development Environment Setup

• WINDOWS Development Environment Setup

• Creation and Activation of Virtual Environments

• Installing dbt

• Setting up our Database

Once we are ready - among several other technical topics, the following features will be covered;

• dbt Models

• dbt Materializations

• dbt Tests: Generic and Singular tests, Unit tests, Custom Tests, Data Contracts, and advanced testing techniques

• dbt Documentation

• dbt Sources, Seeds, Snapshots

• dbt Hooks and Operations

• Jinja and Macros

• dbt Packages

• dbt Fusion

• Visual Studio Code Extensions

• Analyses, Exposures

• dbt Seeds

• Data Visualization and BI (Preset)

• Working with Great Expectations (dbt-expectations)

• Debugging tests in dbt

• dbt Orchestration

• Python Models

• Constraints

• Comprehensive overview of Selectors

• Most useful commands for speeding up dbt work

• Microbatching

• Model Versioning, Deprecation and Disabling Models

• dbt in Production / Slim CI / defer / PRs / Production Best Practices

• Certification Preparation Guide and Practice Test sample

Once the theory and the practical stages are finished, we will dive into the best practices and more advanced topics. The course is continuously updated; whenever dbt publishes an update, we adjust the course accordingly, so you always be up to date!

THEORETICAL SECTION:

Among several other topics, the theoretical section puts special emphasis on transferring knowledge in the following areas;

• Data-Maturity Model

• Well-functioning Data Architectures

• Data Warehouses, Data Lakes, and Data Lakehouses

• ETL and ELT procedures and Data Transformations

• Fundamentals of dbt (Data Build Tool)

• Analytics Engineering

• Modern Data Stack

• Slowly Changing Dimensions

• CTEs

Once we understand the theoretical layer and how dbt fits into the picture, we will start building out a dbt project from scratch, just as you would do in the real world.

Who is this course for?

• Data Engineers

• Data Analysts

• Data Scientists

• BI Developers

• BI Analyst

... and anyone who interacts with data lake/data warehouse/data lakehouse or uses SQL!

Course Level Explained (Zero > Hero)

The course has no expectations about your abilities and starts education from zero. Every exercise is an unavoidable step in your studies. In the same way, don't start an exercise of a superior level without completing the preceding ones: you will be in difficulty if you do so. Practice is the only way to learn, and it cannot be taken lightly. We will be next to you along the journey and you have our absolute support!

When the Airbnb project is presented to you, you must do it entirely, without omitting any guidelines, and by understanding the objective. A project "almost completely" done is often a project "totally incomplete" for us. Give special attention to detail. Your only reliable source of information regarding the instructions is the pedagogical team, don't trust the "I've heard".

By the time you complete the course, you will be equipped with both a very solid theoretical understanding and practical expertise with dbt. All the fundamentals, dbt features, best practices, advanced techniques and more will be covered in our course, which will make you become a master in dbt. Are you ready? ;)

How to get help?

We just published our initial round of Discussions on Udemy which is the easiest and most efficient way for you to post questions, receive answers, and peruse questions from other students. If you have questions or feedback, please reach out to us!

That wraps it up for us for now!

Once again, thank you for being a part of this course.

We can't wait to get started with you soon!

All the best,

Zoltan C. Toth

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