Where dbt Fits in the ELT Pipeline
dbt owns the Transform layer — turning raw loaded data into analytics-ready models
Traditional ETL
ELT with dbt
Analytics
1
Extract
Sources
APIs, databases, SaaS apps, flat files, streaming events
2
Load
Into
Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake
3
Transform
dbt
SQL models, tests, documentation, lineage
4
Consume
Outputs
BI dashboards, ML models, reports
External tools handle these stages
dbt's domain — transformation inside the warehouse
