Intro to Snowflake for Devs, Data Scientists, Data Engineers
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Intro to Snowflake for Devs, Data Scientists, Data Engineers
This course is part of multiple programs.
Instructor: Snowflake Northstar
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What you'll learn
Create and manipulate Snowflake's core objects, such as virtual warehouses, databases, schemas, tables, and stages.
Use important Snowflake features and objects, such as time travel, cloning, resources monitors, UDFs, stored procedures, and Snowpark DataFrames.
Understand the basics of Snowflake’s capabilities for data engineering, generative AI, machine learning, and app development.
Skills you'll gain
Tools you'll learn
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There are 3 modules in this course
This course introduces learners to Snowflake as a platform for building applications, data pipelines, and AI models and workflows. It takes them from zero Snowflake knowledge all the way to creating user-defined functions, using a Snowflake Cortex LLM function, editing a Streamlit app, and more.
The course unfolds in three parts: First, participants learn to use Snowflake’s core objects such as virtual warehouses, stages, and databases. Then they learn about slightly more advanced objects and features such as time travel, cloning, user-defined functions, and stored procedures. Finally, they’re introduced to Snowflake’s capabilities for data engineering, generative AI, machine learning, and app development. Learners come away equipped to start building with Snowflake and to continue their Snowflake learning journeys. This course is a prerequisite for upcoming Snowflake courses on data engineering, AI, and apps.
After a very brief intro to the course, learners will create a free trial, open a worksheet, and query sample data. They’ll learn about scaling virtual warehouses and create a virtual warehouse to ingest Tasty Bytes data. They’ll learn about stages, databases, schemas, and tables. They’ll manipulate semi-structured data. They’ll also learn about the different Snowflake architectural layers.
What's included
20 videos8 readings8 assignments
20 videos•Total 105 minutes
- Intro and Course Overview•6 minutes
- Worksheets and a Simple Example - Part I•5 minutes
- Worksheets and a Simple Example - Part II•4 minutes
- Virtual Warehouses Overview•5 minutes
- Virtual Warehouses Scaling - Part I•4 minutes
- Virtual Warehouses Scaling - Part II•5 minutes
- Stages and Basic Ingestion - Part I•4 minutes
- Stages and Basic Ingestion - Part II•5 minutes
- Databases and Schemas - Part I•5 minutes
- Databases and Schemas - Part II•6 minutes
- Database Explorer•5 minutes
- Tables - Part I•5 minutes
- Tables - Part II•5 minutes
- Dynamic Tables•6 minutes
- Views - Part I•6 minutes
- Views - Part II•5 minutes
- Semi-Structured Data Types•8 minutes
- Semi-Structured Data Manipulation•10 minutes
- Snowflake Architecture Overview•5 minutes
- Wrap-up of Snowflake’s Core Objects and Architecture•1 minute
8 readings•Total 65 minutes
- Course Components & Resources•5 minutes
- Code to Run Before Hands-on Assignment•10 minutes
- Virtual Warehouses Overview — What's Changed•10 minutes
- Virtual Warehouses Scaling — What's Changed•10 minutes
- Stages and Basic Ingestion — What's Changed•10 minutes
- Code to Run Before Hands-on Assignment•5 minutes
- Code to Run Before Hands-on Assignment•5 minutes
- Snowflake Architecture Overview — What's Changed•10 minutes
8 assignments•Total 85 minutes
- Module 1 Assessment (Knowledge Check)•15 minutes
- Worksheets Hands-on Assignment•6 minutes
- Virtual Warehouses Hands-on Assignment•12 minutes
- Stages & Basic Ingestion Hands-on Assignment•10 minutes
- Databases & Schemas Hands-on Assignment•12 minutes
- Tables Hands-on Assignment•8 minutes
- Views Hands-on Assignment•12 minutes
- Semi-Structured Data Hands-on Assignment•10 minutes
Learners will identify a recently introduced “error” in the data and use time travel to correct it. They’ll learn about permanent, transient, and temporary tables, and cloning. They’ll create resource monitors. They’ll create UDFs, a UDTF, and a SQL stored procedure. They’ll learn about role-based access, the VS Code extension, Snowpark DataFrames, and the Snowflake CLI.
What's included
19 videos3 readings10 assignments
19 videos•Total 99 minutes
- Collaborative Development•7 minutes
- Intro to Snowflake Feature Overview•1 minute
- Time Travel - Part I•3 minutes
- Time Travel - Part II•8 minutes
- Permanent, Transient, and Temporary Tables•5 minutes
- Cloning•6 minutes
- Resource Monitors•7 minutes
- User-Defined Functions (UDFs) - Part I•4 minutes
- User-Defined Functions (UDFs) - Part II•5 minutes
- User-Defined Table Functions (UDTFs)•4 minutes
- Stored Procedures - Part I•4 minutes
- Stored Procedures - Part II•7 minutes
- Role-based Access Control (RBAC) - Part I•5 minutes
- Role-based Access Control (RBAC) - Part II [Tether]•4 minutes
- VS Code Extension•6 minutes
- Snowpark DataFrames - Part I•7 minutes
- Snowpark DataFrames - Part II•6 minutes
- Snowflake CLI•6 minutes
- Wrap-up of Snowflake Feature Overview•2 minutes
3 readings•Total 23 minutes
- Code to Run Before Hands-on Assignment•3 minutes
- Cloning — What's Changed•10 minutes
- UDFs — What's Changed•10 minutes
10 assignments•Total 137 minutes
- Module 2 Assessment (Knowledge Check)•15 minutes
- Collaborative Development and Data Clean Rooms Assessment•30 minutes
- Time Travel Hands-on Assignment•12 minutes
- Table Types Knowledge Check Quiz•8 minutes
- Cloning Hands-on Assignment•10 minutes
- Resource Monitors Hands-on Assignment•8 minutes
- UDFs & UDTFs Hands-on Assignment•12 minutes
- Stored Procedures Hands-on Assignment•15 minutes
- RBAC Hands-on Assignment•12 minutes
- Snowpark DataFrames Hands-on Assignment•15 minutes
Learners will explore four Snowflake workloads: Data Engineering, Generative AI, Machine Learning, and Applications. After reviewing each workload, they’ll see one aspect of that workload in practice: for DE, ingesting streaming data with Snowpipe; for GenAI, using the Snowflake Cortex LLM function “Complete”; for ML, using Snowpark ML to create an XGBoost model and make predictions about a food truck’s location; and for apps, running a Streamlit app that shows us Tasty Bytes’ daily revenue. They will then learn about the Snowflake Data Cloud.
What's included
22 videos6 readings10 assignments
22 videos•Total 117 minutes
- Intro to Overview of Builder Workloads•4 minutes
- Snowflake Data Engineering Overview - Part I•6 minutes
- Snowflake Data Engineering Overview - Part II•7 minutes
- Snowpipe - Part I•8 minutes
- Snowpipe - Part II•7 minutes
- Snowflake GenAI Overview - Part I•6 minutes
- Snowflake GenAI Overview - Part II•7 minutes
- Cortex CLI•4 minutes
- Snowflake Cortex LLM Functions - Part I•5 minutes
- Snowflake Cortex LLM Functions - Part II•3 minutes
- Snowflake ML Overview - Part I•5 minutes
- Snowflake ML Overview - Part II•7 minutes
- Snowpark ML Modeling - Part I•7 minutes
- Snowpark ML Modeling - Part II•5 minutes
- Snowpark ML Modeling - Part III•5 minutes
- Snowflake Applications Overview - Part I•4 minutes
- Snowflake Applications Overview - Part II•6 minutes
- Streamlit in Snowflake - Part I•6 minutes
- Streamlit in Snowflake - Part II•5 minutes
- The Data Cloud•4 minutes
- Wrap-up of Overview of Builder Workloads•3 minutes
- Course Conclusion•2 minutes
6 readings•Total 55 minutes
- Snowpipe — What's Changed•10 minutes
- Cortex LLM Functions — What's Changed•10 minutes
- Snowflake ML Overview — What's Changed•10 minutes
- Snowflake Applications Overview — What's Changed•10 minutes
- Code to Run Before Hands-on Assignment•5 minutes
- Acknowledgements•10 minutes
10 assignments•Total 93 minutes
- Module 3 Assessment (Knowledge Check)•15 minutes
- Course Assessment (Knowledge Check)•25 minutes
- Snowflake DE Overview Knowledge Check Quiz•8 minutes
- Snowpipe Knowledge Check Quiz•5 minutes
- Snowflake GenAI Overview Knowledge Check Quiz•5 minutes
- Snowflake Cortex LLM Functions Hands-on Assignment•8 minutes
- Snowflake ML Overview Knowledge Check Quiz•5 minutes
- Snowpark ML Modeling Knowledge Check Quiz•5 minutes
- Snowflake Applications Overview Knowledge Check Quiz•5 minutes
- Streamlit in Snowflake Hands-on Assignment•12 minutes
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Reviewed on May 18, 2025
Just an excellent course. The instructor's tone makes it very accessible.
Reviewed on Dec 15, 2024
Well-rounded introduction to Snowflake with helpful hands-on experience working with data and objects.
Reviewed on Nov 20, 2025
Great course. Peter presents the info in practical, understandable terms.
Frequently asked questions
This is a great question. We designed this course for those with absolutely no Snowflake knowledge, and very minimal SQL and Python knowledge, so we thought it would be more accurate to call it a beginner course than it would be to call it an intermediate course. But it's accurate to say that we expect you to come into the course with some knowledge, so it's not truly prerequisite-free.
For SQL, we don't teach you how to run a basic "SELECT column_name FROM table" query, and if you don't know that, this might move a bit too fast. But if you know that, and "WHERE" and "GROUP BY" and "ORDER BY," you're in decent shape on the SQL side. And on the Python side, if you're familiar with importing a library, if you know what a function is, if you know Python basics (you don't get overly nervous when you see a list), and if you have manipulated a dataframe, you should be good.
You should take comfort in the fact that we designed this for a wide range of data practitioners (data scientists, data engineers, and data app developers or people who aspire to one of those roles), so we really try not to assume that you know anything about what those functions do. (We don't want to dive into app jargon too fast, only to confuse data scientists who haven't built apps.) We tried hard to make the course accessible.
You can access all course content without paying (all videos, hands-on assignments, readings, etc.), except for the knowledge check quizzes. You also cannot get a Coursera certificate of completion without paying.
You can find developer resources at developers.snowflake.com, and our product documentation at docs.snowflake.com.
More questions
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