If you're a business owner watching your analyst burn hours on queries, the problem usually isn't them — it's the SQL patterns being used. Here are five upgrades that turn 30-second queries into 3-second ones.
1) Window functions instead of self-joins for running totals and rankings. 2) CTEs to make complex logic readable. 3) Filtering before joining, not after. 4) Indexed timestamp columns for time-series. 5) Materialized views for repeat-heavy executive dashboards.
I rebuild slow analytics pipelines for companies every month. If your team is waiting more than 5 seconds for a dashboard, you're paying for it twice — once in compute, once in lost decisions.