What helped you the most when you were getting started with Databricks?

[edonaire]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently deepening my Databricks learning journey and one thing I’ve noticed is that there are many ways to get started, but not all of them help equally once you move from theory to real projects.

For those who already have some hands-on experience, what helped you the most in the beginning?

For example:

• SQL first or PySpark first?
• Best way to understand Unity Catalog in practice
• How to think about medallion architecture without overcomplicating it
• What beginner mistakes to avoid in notebooks, jobs, or pipelines
• Which features are most important to learn early for real business use cases

I’m especially interested in learning paths that go beyond isolated tutorials and help build real-world thinking.

Would love to hear what clicked for you when you were starting out.

Thanks!

[emma_s]

Hi,

For me I started from a SQL base but I really think it depends what background your coming from. If you are used to using Python day in day out then use that, if you've used SQL then use SQL first. Next I'd say understand declarative pipelines and lakeflow connect. Have a play and build out an end to end ingestion pipeline. This will also help you to think about medalion architecture and what you should do at each step in the architecture. Think about the use cases for materialized views vs streaming tables.
Next up, build a dashboard and a genie room. Finally, start experimenting with the AI functionality, it's good to put some PDFs into a volume and build a simple knowledge assistant you can then pair this up with your Genie room and work out which is best for what. 

At this point you'll start to understand the breadth of the Databricks platform, then you can start to focus in on one area.

Thanks,

Emma