Structured Query Language, or as it more usually known SQL (pronounced Sequel), is a special-purpose database programming language. It allows you to manipulate rows and columns of data from databases organized much like a spreadsheet and to analyze the fields (columns) and produce results tables. These results can then be displayed as management reports, graphics and charts and fed into a spreadsheet program for further analysis. The list below shows some of the key reasons to learn SQL.
A database, in simplest terms, is an organized collection of data. A database is comprised of many tables, and a table stores rows of data in a structured format defined by the table's columns. This represents the basic hierarchy of a database. When writing SQL queries, you are interacting with rows of data stored in tables contained within a database.
Product Managers: Product managers always have to know inside out of the product they own, and the data speaks the truth about a product’s health. It’s good to know SQL and in control of what’s happening.
Data Analysts: The word ‘data’ is already on the title, along with the popularity of relational databases, knowing SQL is a must.
Data Scientists: The ones who always understand the data better than anyone else on Earth. How can they skip SQL?
Data Engineers: Same with Data Scientists and Data Analysts, it’s a must to know SQL when you’re the ones who design the databases and keep it going.
Backend Developers: This role is a bit similar to Data Engineers when it comes to database management. It’s hard to find a backend app without a database.
Frontend developers: They aren’t going to write much SQL but with the rise of Angular.js, React.js, and other single page application frameworks, it’s likely that you’re going to interact directly with the databases more often. So just learn SQL and it will be much helpful if one day you turn into a full stack developer.
Mobile App Developers: If you are a mobile app developer, especially for Android, I would be surprised if you haven’t heard anything about SQLite. SQLite is an embedded database which has been widely used by the majority of Android developers for more than 20 years for the projects where they need to store the data on a device, not on a server. Of course, it’s powered by SQL.
Marketers: As a marketer, you need to be data-driven. But you don’t want to rely on someone from the dev team who is always busy with other more important tasks to get the report you need to see. Knowing SQL will allow you to self-serve and empower you to better analyze the business. It’ll give you more insights and help yourself be more valuable.
Another good news is, you don’t need to know programming or be technical to learn SQL.
Where to learn SQL?
Here is a list of useful resources to learn SQL:
SQLBolt
Intro to SQL for Data Science by Datacamp
Data Science and Cognitive Computing Courses
Introduction to Structured Query Language (SQL)
SQL for Data Science
Data Science Essentials
Intro to SQL: Querying and managing data