Databases for Developers
Learn how relational, NoSQL, vector, and cloud databases work — and how to pick, design, and query the right one for your application.
This free, self-paced course is designed for intermediate learners in databases. Work through the lessons in order, use the objectives below as a checklist, and practice against real systems rather than memorizing slide labels. Estimated time: ~4 hours across 10 lessons.
Prerequisites
- Comfortable writing basic SQL SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE
- Experience building an app that persists data (any language or ORM)
Course Curriculum
Each lesson is a focused read. Open one, complete any self-checks or exercises, then mark progress in this browser before moving on.
How Databases Work
16 min
Relational Databases & SQL
24 min
Schema Design & Normalization
22 min
Indexes & Query Optimization
26 min
Transactions & ACID
20 min
NoSQL: Document Stores
22 min
NoSQL: Key-Value & Caching with Redis
20 min
Vector Databases & AI Search
18 min
Cloud Databases & Connection Pooling
20 min
Choosing the Right Database
16 min
Related articles
Pair this course with deeper guides on the same topic. Articles include diagrams, failure modes, and decision rules.
- Disaster Recovery: RPO vs RTO Explained
- Hot Partitions and Hotspot Mitigation
- Read-Heavy vs Write-Heavy System Design
- Fault Tolerance vs High Availability
See the full Databases & Data Storage topic hub.