Why not write simple SQL queries and use another language to do the transformations?
Are SQL engines really more efficient at filtering/matching/aggregating data when doing complex queries? Doesn't working without reusable blocks / tests / logs make development harder?
Syntax is one thing, but actual performance (and safety/maintenance) is another deal?
Before you would write a Java/c++ class that would do the map/reduce job for you distributed over 100s of CPUS. And you would feel like you were on the bleeding edge doing innovative stuff.
Turns out that SQL is a perfect API for map/reduce.
Everything you write in SQL can be transformed into a massively parallel job. And you don't even know about it.
This is the secret behind BigQuery and Trino/Presto/Athena.