SQL-First ETL - Building Easy, Efficient Data Pipelines With DLT

Explore how SQL-based ETL can accelerate development, simplify maintenance, and make data transformation more accessible to both engineers and analysts in this 33-minute conference talk from Databricks. Learn to build production-grade data pipelines using familiar SQL constructs through Databricks DLT and Databricks SQL warehouse. Discover techniques for using streaming tables for real-time ingestion and processing, leveraging materialized views to deliver fast pre-computed datasets, and integrating with tools like dbt to manage batch and streaming workflows at scale. Gain insights from Databricks engineers Meixian Li, Paul Lappas, and Ritwik Yadav as they demonstrate how SQL-first approaches can streamline ETL development while supporting both operational and analytical use cases, making data pipeline creation more efficient and maintainable for teams of varying technical backgrounds.