If you’re on the journey to becoming a data analyst (or already in the field), you’ve probably heard this a million times:
To get that first job or move your career forward, make sure your portfolio shows that you’re well-rounded. Know one spreadsheet tool. One visualization/reporting tool. One programming language. One database/query language (usually SQL).
- Spreadsheets? Easy – Google Sheets dashboards, Excel pivot tables, well-documented models.
- Visualization tools? Public Tableau dashboards, Power BI reports, or shiny interactive visuals.
- Programming? A Python notebook on GitHub. Maybe a Streamlit app. You can point to something.
But then there’s SQL. And that’s where, for me, the wheels kind of come off.
The SQL Showcase Struggle
I’ve been researching SQL portfolio ideas for what feels like forever.
What I keep finding is… well… the same ideas everywhere.
- ”Build a database schema.” (Okay, but it’s hard to get excited about ER diagrams in a portfolio.)
- “Answer a set of business questions on a dataset . Write queries to find top customers, average sales, etc.” (Done that. Many times. Feels generic.)
- “Practice joins, group bys, window functions, CTEs.” (Useful. Necessary. But how does that showcase anything beyond syntax?)
And I’m left asking:
- How do you make SQL – the behind-the-scenes, glue-code of data – actually shine in a portfolio?
- How do you go beyond “I can write queries” to “I can think like a data analyst using SQL” and make that visible to someone reviewing your work for 10 seconds?
Why SQL Feels So Invisible
Here’s part of the problem – SQL is invisible until something goes wrong.
When it works;
- The dashboard updates
- The model trains on clean data
- The report runs
Nobody says, “Wow, amazing SQL!”
Unlike a beautiful Tableau dashboard or a slick Python app, there’s nothing flashy about a query that runs efficiently.
And in a portfolio, where we’re told to show, don’t tell, what does “good SQL” look like, beyond some clean code in a GitHub repo or screenshots of query results?
The Common Ideas Feel…Common
Don’t get me wrong. Those classic SQL projects (designing a database for a bookstore, writing queries for sales data, doing window function exercises) are important. I’ve done them.
But here’s where I get stuck:
- If I’m doing a portfolio to stand out… how do I stand out if my SQL project looks like everyone else’s?
- Is a recruiter really going to click through 50 lines of SQL code and say, “Ah, yes, this candidate is different!”?
- How do I showcase critical thinking not just syntax knowledge, through SQL?
A Great Reminder from the Community
After I first shared these thoughts on LinkedIn, someone left a comment that really stuck with me:
SQL is not about coding the best query…which you can and should as a data analyst. But SQL is about solving a problem and providing value through your insights.
And that’s it, isn’t it?
I realized that maybe I’ve been so focused on how to showcase SQL that I lost sight of the why.
It’s not about impressing someone with a complex join or an elegant CTE (even though those things matter). It’s about how you use SQL to:
- Frame a problem clearly.
- Extract the data that matters.
- Shape that data so that others can act on it.
- Deliver insights that drive decisions.
SQL isn’t the goal. The insight is the goal. SQL is the tool that gets you there cleanly, efficiently, and thoughtfully. And maybe that’s how we should all think about SQL portfolio pieces: not just code for code’s sake, but code in service of a question, a decision, a story.
So Now I’m Rethinking My Approach
That comment really shifted my mindset, and I’ve been reflecting on it since. I don’t just want to write clever queries or show off window functions (even though those are valuable skills). I want to focus on how SQL can help me solve real problems and provide meaningful insights.
Here’s where I believe SQL can truly shine in a portfolio:
1. When it solves a real problem, not just when it answers textbook questions.
I’m moving beyond datasets that everyone uses and canned questions with obvious answers. Instead, I want to highlight how SQL can help tackle messy, real-world challenges.
Imagine showcasing projects where you:
- Design a schema that can handle messy, imperfect data — with all its quirks, missing values, and inconsistencies, and explain the decisions behind your design
- Optimize queries for performance on large datasets, and clearly document the trade-offs you considered (like indexing, denormalization, or query restructuring)
- Use SQL not just to pull data, but to clean it, reshape it, and make it ready for analysis and tell the story of that transformation step-by-step
2. When it’s part of a story
SQL projects don’t have to be huge or flashy. But they do come to life when they’re tied to something meaningful:
- Maybe you built a small database to track your fitness progress or your reading habits and used SQL to analyze patterns over time
- Maybe you cleaned and analyzed a public dataset on foreign investments and uncovered trends that matter
- Maybe you aggregated social media data or customer feedback and used SQL to surface insights others might miss
Where I’m At Now
I love SQL, and I love how it forces you to think carefully about structure, logic, and relationships. But like any good analyst, I’m curious and eager to learn.
- What’s the best way to show problem-solving with SQL in a portfolio, beyond just sharing queries or ER diagrams?
- If you’ve built SQL work into your portfolio that sparked good conversations in interviews, what did you highlight or emphasize?
- How do you balance showing technical SQL skills (like complex queries) with the bigger-picture story of the problem you solved?
- If you’ve hired analysts before, what tells you that someone can use SQL thoughtfully, not just write syntactically correct code?
If you’ve wrestled with these questions too, or if you’ve found approaches that worked, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Let’s keep the conversation going.