How to Build Reliable Incremental Models in dbt for Large Datasets: Production Lessons at Scale
Why Incremental Models Become Critical at Scale Large datasets change the economics and reliability profile of dbt transformations. Full-refresh models become slow, expensive and operationally risky at high data volumes. Incremental models are a primary strategy for keeping runtimes predictable at scale. Incremental design is not only a performance optimisation but a reliability requirement. Poor incremental logic can silently introduce duplicates, gaps and metric drift. Figure 1: dbt Incremental Models Many common dbt examples are not safe for large and […]