---
title: "SQL | Skills We Assign For | Azendo"
description: "SQL across engineering, analytics and QA — why query skill decides more than tooling, and the Azendo roles assigned for it."
url: "https://azendo.co/skills/sql/"
---

[Skills](https://azendo.co/skills/) Data stores and query 

# SQL.

SQL is the query language used to read and manipulate data in relational databases and most analytical warehouses. It is the one skill that appears across engineering, analytics and testing, because almost every question about what a system actually did is answered by querying its data.

## Where SQL fits on a long engagement.

SQL is where the difference between a competent and an excellent specialist shows most directly in money. A query that scans a table instead of using an index is invisible in review, correct in output, and expensive every time it runs. Reading a query plan is a more valuable skill than knowing another framework.

It is also the fastest route to establishing what really happened. Before a bug is a code problem it is usually a data question, and a tester who can write the query finds the answer in minutes rather than filing a ticket for someone else to.

## What an assigned team does with SQL.

SQL is where an assigned team quietly saves money. Query cost compounds daily, and nobody raises a ticket for a report that has always taken forty seconds. A specialist who has been on the product long enough to notice that it used to take four is the mechanism by which that gets fixed.

It also crosses the boundary between the people building the system and the people reporting on it, which is why the capacity is frequently split across two assignments on one agreement rather than one, with [data science](https://azendo.co/services/data-science/) covering the analytical side.

## What we use SQL for.

* Finding the cause rather than the symptom Querying production data directly to establish what state a record was actually in when a defect appeared.
* Performance work on a growing dataset Indexes and query shape revisited as volume changes, before the slow path becomes the outage.
* Reconciliation between systems Proving two systems agree, or finding exactly which rows they do not, which is the basis of most finance reporting.

## How SQL capacity is assigned.

SQL is assumed rather than assigned for. Where it is the centre of the work — warehouse models, pipelines, reporting — that capacity is assigned under [managed data services](https://azendo.co/services/data-engineering/).

## Roles we assign SQL for

* [Analytics Engineer Data engineering](https://azendo.co/services/data-engineering/analytics-engineer/)
* [Data Engineer Data engineering](https://azendo.co/services/data-engineering/data-engineer/)
* [ETL Developer Data engineering](https://azendo.co/services/data-engineering/etl-developer/)
* [BI Developer Data science](https://azendo.co/services/data-science/bi-developer/)
* [Data Analyst Data science](https://azendo.co/services/data-science/data-analyst/)
* [Data Scientist Data science](https://azendo.co/services/data-science/data-scientist/)
* [QA Engineer QA and test automation](https://azendo.co/services/qa-engineering-and-test-automation/qa-engineer/)

## Service lines it sits in

* [Data engineering](https://azendo.co/services/data-engineering/)
* [Data science](https://azendo.co/services/data-science/)
* [QA and test automation](https://azendo.co/services/qa-engineering-and-test-automation/)

Capacity is agreed as a committed monthly capacity across a discipline, not per skill.

## Related in data stores and query

* [SQL Server — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/sql-server/)
* [Oracle — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/oracle/)
* [ClickHouse — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/clickhouse/)
* [Redshift — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/redshift/)
* [Query optimisation — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/query-optimisation/)
* [indexing strategy — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/indexing-strategy/)
* [partitioning — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/partitioning/)
* [replication — skill we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/replication/)

## Tell us what your roadmap needs SQL for.

A service delivery manager replies with the disciplines we would assign, the monthly capacity and what the first month looks like.

[All skills we assign for](https://azendo.co/skills/)