Beginner · Cohort
Relational Core Lab
Normalisation drills, constraint design, and ER modelling with live feedback loops.
Lovely Banks · Victoria
SQL flight paths with receipts, not slogans
- Every module lists the drivers, extensions, and CI files you will touch.
- Hybrid cohorts get physical breakout days plus shared telemetry walls.
- Certificates only appear when assessment rubrics are satisfied—no shortcuts.
Browse learning tracks
Internal feedback: 94% of recent cohorts said lab pacing matched the pre-read hours we publish.
Vector cohort desk
Window frames, CDC slots, and migration freezes—each block ends with a written retro packet.
Relay desk
Async track with annotated solution branches for solo night shifts.
Capability matrix (snapshot)
Pick the lane that matches how your team already reviews SQL—no fake scarcity, just transparent differences.
| Signal | Relay desk | Vector cohort | Beacon studio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Telemetry bundle | Forum snapshots | Shared boards | Private war room |
| Mentor touchpoints | Bi-weekly | Weekly live | Daily stand-in |
| Dataset masking | Shared lab | Team-specific | Custom contract |
| Certificate | Add-on | Included | Included + letter |
Throughput we actually measure
Five counters we refresh after each cohort—no vanity “always 4 metrics” dashboards.
38 live lab runs in 2025
612 reviewed SQL diffs
11 mentor pair rotations
9.1/10 lab retro score (internal)
72% cohorts citing CDC hygiene wins
Learning tracks catalogue
Filter by level, study mode, duration, or certificate policy. Ten database engineering modules ready for scheduling calls.
Intermediate · Hybrid
Transaction Isolation Studio
Repeatable read vs serialisable workloads, deadlock traces, and lock escalation playbooks.
Advanced · Cohort
Indexing Telemetry Clinic
B-tree vs BRIN trade-offs, partial indexes, and autovacuum tuning with measured IO.
Intermediate · Self-paced
Window Functions Orbit
Frame clauses, running aggregates, and cohort retention queries without nested subqueries.
Advanced · Hybrid
Stored Procedure Hardening
Definer rights review, SQL injection surfaces, and deterministic unit tests for routines.
Intermediate · Cohort
CDC Pipelines Primer
Logical decoding, slot hygiene, and staging schemas for near-real-time analytics feeds.
Advanced · Cohort
Schema Migration Flightdeck
Expand/contract patterns, zero-downtime column swaps, and rollback rehearsals.
Advanced · Self-paced
Query Planner Deep Dive
Cost model knobs, join order hints without hint spam, and parallel worker budgeting.
Intermediate · Hybrid
OLTP / OLAP Bridge
Materialised view refresh strategies, incremental models, and warehouse handoff contracts.
Beginner · Cohort
SQL Review Boardroom
Facilitated peer review rituals, rubrics for readability, and safe rollout checklists.
Lab cadence from day one
Horizontal flight strip—no four identical circles—just the checkpoints we use before green-lighting a cohort.
| 01 | Baseline plan capture with anonymised stats |
| 02 | Paired labs with live EXPLAIN archives |
| 03 | Peer SQL review using published rubric |
| 04 | Integration rehearsal with rollback script |
| 05 | Retro packet delivered to managers |
Signals from recent crews
“The Transaction Isolation Studio deadlock labs finally gave our payments squad vocabulary that matched Grafana traces. We still replay the trace worksheets before each freeze window.”
— Harriet Voss, Staff engineer, Southern Rails Pay
“Window Functions Orbit reframed how our analysts document frame clauses—less tribal knowledge, more grep-friendly repos.”
Jun · Ballarat
“Indexing Telemetry Clinic forced us to pair EXPLAIN archives with autovacuum snapshots. Took a week to adopt, worth it.”
Aisha Khan · Data platform lead · Harbour Ledger · 5★
“Relational Core Lab pacing was brisk—wanted one more office hour on functional dependencies—but the ER critique sessions were standout.”
Client in public sector data team
“CDC Primer slot steward ritual stopped our analytics team from silently starving replicas. Minor nit: wish the Kafka UI appendix had dark mode screenshots.”
Chris P. · SRE
Mini briefing: filters vs planner noise
Dead tuples skew costs before joins misbehave—log vacuum signals beside every regression ticket.
Why it matters
Teams interrogate join order while ignoring autovacuum lag—we give both columns equal space in retros.
What we ship
Printable diff template plus Grafana board starter so you can mirror the habit without proprietary tooling lock-in.
Crews who share telemetry with us
Harbour LedgerSouthern Rails PayBlueband HealthGeelong Civic DataOtway Analytics Co-opBrightline Education Trust
Download the syllabus pack
PDF includes hour-by-hour prep, hardware baselines, and refund cadence cross-links—no inbox wall.
This demo form stays front-end only—use Request information on the contact route for real routing.
Enquire about the Vector cohort
Next intake briefings open 12 May 2026. We cap hybrid seats at eighteen so each desk keeps mentor visibility—no countdown gimmicks, just a published capacity.
Request information