Overview
What this challenge is about.
Optimize a 42-minute Trino query on a crypto exchange platform using EXPLAIN ANALYZE. Cut runtime under five minutes and earn a verifiable certificate.
The scenario
The company is a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange whose analyst team depends on a single Trino query over an Iceberg-on-S3 warehouse to study trading behaviour across products; at 80 runs a day the query's cost and latency have become a recurring operational drag.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Redesign a 42-minute, USD 18-per-run Trino analytics query so it runs under 5 minutes for under USD 4, and document the optimization pattern so other analysts can reuse it.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Read a Trino EXPLAIN ANALYZE plan to locate the stages that dominate runtime and bytes scanned
- Apply Iceberg table-design levers (partition pruning, sort/cluster ordering, compaction) to reduce data read
- Choose between query-level, table-level, and engine-level optimizations and justify each against evidence
- Benchmark honestly across cold and warm caches and convert worker time into a defensible dollar cost
- Distil a specific fix into a transferable pattern others can apply without the author present
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Trino
Apply trino to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Sql Optimization
Apply sql optimization to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Iceberg
Apply iceberg to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Query Tuning
Apply query tuning to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Benchmarking
Apply benchmarking to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Documentation
Apply documentation to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Analytics Database Administrator
This challenge mirrors the core of the role: taking a costly production query, proving where time and money are spent, and re-engineering it against real engine and table evidence. It builds the diagnostic and tuning judgement that distinguishes a DBA from a query writer.
This challenge sharpens
- trino
- sql-optimization
- iceberg
Data Performance Engineer
Performance engineers live in benchmarking and cost-per-query trade-offs. By measuring cold and warm runs and defending a dollar figure, you practise the honest, repeatable measurement discipline these teams demand when they sign off on infrastructure spend.
This challenge sharpens
- query-tuning
- benchmarking
- sql-optimization
Analytics Platform Engineer
Platform engineers must turn one fix into a standard the whole team adopts. Writing a transferable optimization-pattern memo over an Iceberg-on-Trino warehouse develops exactly the documentation-and-generalisation skill that scales a single win across an organisation.
This challenge sharpens
- iceberg
- documentation
- query-tuning