What does it take to make Postgres and Azure fit together cleanly, like puzzle pieces? In Episode 39 of Talking Postgres, Adam Prout—distinguished engineer at Microsoft and a founding architect of Azure HorizonDB—joins Claire to trace his engineering journey from MemSQL to Postgres. We dig into shared-storage architecture and how HorizonDB pushes more work into the storage layer; why the team chose Rust; and what “good systems programming” looks like when being paranoid is a feature, not a bug. Along the way: startup vs big company tradeoffs, and how working on databases exposes you to so many interesting parts of computer science.

Previously on Talking Postgres:

• Talking Postgres Ep29: How I got started leading database teams with Shireesh Thota

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Blog post: Announcing Azure HorizonDB, by Charles Feddersen & Affan Dar
• CMUDB talk: HorizonDB: Co-Designing Postgres and Azure for Cloud-Native OLTP, by Adam Prout
• Research paper: Socrates: The New SQL Server in the Cloud
• Product page: Azure HorizonDB
• Video of POSETTE 2025 talk: Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI
• Blog post: Scaling PostgreSQL to power 800 million ChatGPT users, by Bohan Zhang
• Blog post: Supporting ChatGPT on PostgreSQL in Azure, by Affan Dar, Adam Prout, & Panagiotis Antonopoulos
• Docs: Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• GitHub repo: pgrx
• Discord: PostgreSQL Hacking server
• Conference: PGConf.dev 2026
• Conference Schedule: PGConf.dev 2026 Schedule

It’s rare for developers to genuinely love their database, so why does Postgres earn that kind of loyalty? In Episode 38 of Talking Postgres, Gwen Shapira, co‑founder of Nile, joins Claire to trace her path from operating Oracle at scale, through a long NoSQL chapter, to co‑founding a Postgres company that wasn’t originally meant to be one—after discovering how much Postgres quietly gets right. Gwen shares how she spun up on Postgres after years with other databases (shout-out to the Happiness Hints and a strong sense of curiosity), and why Postgres has made her appreciate Codd. We also touch on blogging as a career catalyst, the upcoming PGConf.dev conference (where a lot of PG20 work gets discussed, and where we’ll celebrate 30 years of Postgres)—and the #1 rule of consulting: it’s always the consultant’s fault.

Previously on Talking Postgres:

• Talking Postgres Ep15: My Journey to Explaining Explain with Michael Christofides
• Talking Postgres Ep24: Why mentor Postgres developers with Robert Haas
• Talking Postgres Ep30: AI for data engineers with Simon Willison

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Gwen’s company: Nile
• Ardent Performance Computing blog: PostgreSQL Happiness Hints
• Book: Just Use Postgres! by Denis Magda
• GitHub repo: HypoPG
• Wikipedia page: Codd’s 12 rules
• Blog post: Transaction Isolation in Postgres, by Gwen Shapira
• Podcast: Postgres.FM
• Discord server: PostgreSQL Hacking

Upcoming conferences & talks mentioned:

• Conference: PGConf.dev 2026 on May 19-22 in Vancouver Canada
• Conference Schedule: PGConf.dev 2026 schedule
• CFP deadline: PGConf.dev Community Discussion Sessions deadline on 14 Apr 2026
• Conference: PGConf EU 2026 in Valencia Spain
• LinkedIn post: PGConf.dev 2026 conference t-shirt, celebrating 30 years of Postgres
• POSETTE 2026 talk: The Rise of PostgreSQL as the Everything Database, by Varun Dhawan
• PGConf.dev 2026 Panel: Real-Time Patch Idea Evaluation
• PGConf.dev 2026 Roundtable: Unexpected Successes & Epic Failures by PostgreSQL committers
• Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep39 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed May 06, 2026

Why does SQL feel so approachable to some developers, and why do some of them end up spending their careers in the data layer? In Episode 37 of Talking Postgres, Charles Feddersen, who leads product for Postgres at Microsoft, joins Claire to talk about building Postgres services on Azure. We explore his path from classic ASP apps on Microsoft Access to distributed Postgres with Citus, the moment he installed pgAdmin and got pulled deeper into Postgres, and what it takes to build for the many different ways people rely on Postgres today—from Flexible Server and Azure HorizonDB to developer tooling—and why it’s important to support the upstream Postgres open source project.

Previously on Talking Postgres:

• Ep 22: Leading engineering for Postgres on Azure with Affan Dar: https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/leading-engineering-for-postgres-on-azure-with-affan-dar
• Ep29: How I got started leading database teams with Shireesh Thota https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/how-i-got-started-leading-database-teams-with-shireesh-thota

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Video of CMUDB talk: HorizonDB: Co‑Designing PostgreSQL and Azure for Cloud‑Native OLTP, by Adam Prout
• Video of talk: Azure HorizonDB: Deep Dive into a New Enterprise-Scale PostgreSQL, by Adam Prout & Denzil Ribeiro
• Talk at SCALE 23x: Did VS Code Quietly Become a Go-To Postgres Tool?, by Phil Vacca
• Visual Studio Code Marketplace: VS Code extension for PostgreSQL
• Docs: Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server
• GitHub repo: Citus open source
• Postgres extension: PostGIS
• Conference: PGConf India 2026

Upcoming conferences & talks mentioned:

• Conference: PGConf.dev 2026 in Vancouver Canada
• Conference: Microsoft Build 2026
• Keynote at POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026: Driving Postgres forward at Microsoft
• POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026: Schedule
• Conference: Postgres Summit US 2026 (formerly PGConf NYC)
• Conference: PGConf EU 2026 in Valencia
• Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep38 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Apr 08, 2026

Why would anyone willingly spend weeks chasing a slow query, knowing they might hit dead ends along the way? In Episode 36 of Talking Postgres, Tomas Vondra—Postgres committer and long‑time performance contributor—joins Claire to explain why hacking on Postgres performance is not just hard, but also fun. We dig into the process of investigating why queries are slow, how iteration and “wrong turns” are part of performance work, and why Tomas prefers meaningful performance puzzles over toy problems. Along the way, we talk about using benchmarks to build an understanding of a problem. Tomas also shares how even small changes in code can have outsized impact when that code is used a lot, and how the mathematics embedded in the Postgres query planner/executor makes the work especially rewarding.

Previously on Talking Postgres:

• Talking Postgres Ep31: What went wrong (& what went right) with AIO with Andres Freund
• Talking Postgres Ep24: Why mentor Postgres developers with Robert Haas

Links mentioned in this episode:

• PGConf.dev 2026: Schedule
• GitHub repo: PostgreSQL Monthly Hacking Workshop, organized by Robert Haas
• Nordic PGDay 2026: Tomas talk on approximating percentiles
• Video of POSETTE 2025 talk: Performance Archaeology – 20 years of improvements
• Video of PGConf EU 2025 talk: Fast-path locking improvements in PG18
• Conference: Prague PostgreSQL Developer Day
• Discord: PostgreSQL Hacking Discord
• GitHub repo: tvondra/tdigest
• Brendan Gregg’s site: perf Linux profiler examples
• Docs: pgbench for running benchmarks on PostgreSQL
• Blog: Tomas Vondra blog
• Postgres Patch Ideas: List on Tomas Vondra blog
• Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep37 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Mar 18, 2026

Are self-driving databases the Waymos of the future? In Episode 35 of Talking Postgres, Luigi Nardi—founder and CEO of DBtune and Stanford researcher—joins Claire Giordano to explore his journey from academic research to Level 5 autonomous database tuning. We dig into Luigi’s early days with a Commodore 64, how he began his PhD in Paris before he had learned to speak French, and how "professor privilege" in Sweden helped him bootstrap his startup. You’ll learn why the DBtune team chose database tuning and Postgres as their focus, what the Jevons paradox means for the future of developers, and how the “Level 5” vision fuels the DBtune team’s work toward a truly self-driving system.

Previously on Talking Postgres:

• Talking Postgres Ep30: AI for data engineers with Simon Willison
• Talking Postgres Ep23: How I got started as a developer & in Postgres with Daniel Gustafsson

Links mentioned in this episode:

• CFP: POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026’s CFP closes on Sun Feb 1, 2026 @ 11:59pm PST
• Video of POSETTE 2024 talk: Autotuning PostgreSQL on Azure Flexible Server, by Luigi Nardi
• Video of PGConf India 2025 talk: ML for Systems and Systems for ML, by Luigi Nardi
• PGConf India 2025: Round Table Discussion about AI
• Oxide and Friends podcast: Engineering Rigor in the LLM Age
• Wikipedia: Jevons paradox
• Wikipedia: Neuro-symbolic AI
• Conference: PGDay Lowlands (Boriss Mejías calls it the second-best Postgres conference in Europe)
• Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep36 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Feb 18, 2026

What do conference planning, hacking weddings, and cat-free coding sessions have to do with Postgres? In Episode 34 of Talking Postgres, Melanie Plageman—Postgres committer and major contributor from Microsoft—joins Claire for a lively deep dive into what developers can expect at PGConf.dev 2026 as Postgres turns 30. We explore new content formats, the role of travel grants, why Tuesday becomes a full conference day, and how the hallway track often shapes the next Postgres release. Plus: creating space for new contributors to get inspired and get involved. And yes—the CFP is open until Jan 16, 2026.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Podcast: Becoming a Postgres committer with Melanie Plageman
• Podcast: How I got started as a dev and in Postgres with Melanie Plageman & Thomas Munro
• Conference: PGConf.dev 2026
• CFP for PGConf.dev: CFP will close on Jan 16, 2026
• PGConf.dev 2026: About
• PGConf.dev 2026: Sponsorship levels
• PGConf.dev 2026: Travel grant program
• Social: LinkedIn account for PGConf.dev
• POSETTE: An Event for Postgres: POSETTE CFP is open until Feb 1, 2026
• Meetup: Post about inaugural PostgreSQL Nairobi Meetup in Dec 2025
• PGDay Lowlands 2025: Debate on Kubernetes, session details
• PGDay Lowlands 2025: Debate about autotuning, session details
• Conference talk at PGCon 2019: Intro to Postgres Planner Hacking, by Melanie Plageman
• Blog post: The Pac-Man Rule at Conferences, by Eric Holsher
• Discord invite for PostgreSQL Hacking Mentoring server: https://discord.gg/bx2G9KWyrY
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep35 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Jan 14, 2026

What do guitar busking, geospatial queries, and agentic coding have to do with Postgres? In Episode 33 of Talking Postgres, principal engineer Rob Emanuele at Microsoft shares his winding path from Venice Beach to building a new VS Code extension for PostgreSQL—that works with any Postgres, anywhere. We dig into GitHub Copilot, ask vs. agent mode, and how Rob now codes in English—and then spends even more time in code review to decide what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s dangerous. Also: how PyCon changed his life; his work on the Microsoft Planetary Computer with spatio-temporal queries and PostGIS; and how music, improv, and failure shape his approach to developer experience.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Visual Studio Marketplace: VS Code extension for PostgreSQL with ~261K downloads to date
• GitHub repo: VS Code extension for PostgreSQL (for issues/discussions)
• Docs: GitHub Copilot agent mode
• POSETTE 2025 Talk: Introducing Microsoft’s VS Code Extension for PostgreSQL, by Matt McFarland
• VS Code Live: Working with PostgreSQL databases with the Microsoft PostgreSQL VS Code extension, with Olivia Guzzardo & Rob Emanuele
• Talking Postgres Ep30: AI for data engineers with Simon Willison
• Postgres Meetup for All: VS Code Tools for Postgres, happening on Thu Dec 11, 2025
• Wikipedia: Dogfooding
• Talking Postgres Ep07: Why people care about PostGIS and Postgres with Paul Ramsey & Regina Obe
• POSETTE 2024 keynote: The Open Source Geospatial Community, PostGIS, & Postgres, by Regina Obe
• Website: Microsoft Planetary Computer
• GitHub repo: PgSTAC
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep34 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Dec 10, 2025

What do chess clocks, jazz, and Postgres replication have in common? In Episode 32 of Talking Postgres, solution architect Boriss Mejías shares how the idea of “interconnectedness”—inspired by Douglas Adams—can help you untangle complex Postgres questions. We explore OpenAI’s approach to scaling Postgres, how Postgres active-active mirrors Sparta’s dual kingship, and how a holistic approach can reveal the behavior of synchronous replication. Also: Beethoven’s 17 drafts, and why chasing perfection can hold you back. Listen to learn more about Boriss, Postgres, and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Podcast Ep32 of Talking Postgres: What went wrong (& what went right) with AIO with Andres Freund
• Podcast Ep03 of Talking Postgres: Why give talks at Postgres conferences with Álvaro Herrera & Boriss Mejías:
• Wikipedia: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams
• Talk at PGConf NYC 2025: Scaling Postgres to the Next Level at OpenAI, by Bohan Zhang
• Video of PGConf.dev 2025 talk: Scaling Postgres to the Next Level at OpenAI, by Bohan Zhang
• Talk at PGConf NYC 2025: Improved Freezing in Postgres Vacuum: From Idea to Commit, by Melanie Plageman
• Talk at PGConf NYC 2025: Database Modeling to Study the New York Jazz Scene, by Boriss Mejías
• Jazz Club in NYC: Patrick’s Place in Harlem
• Video of PGConf EU 2024 talk: Sparta’s Dual-Kingship and PostgreSQL Active-Active, by Boriss Mejías
• Video of POSETTE 2025 talk: Postgres Storytelling: Cunning Schema Design with Creative Data Modeling, by Boriss Mejías & Sarah Conway
• Talk at FOSDEM PGDay 2024: High Availability Configurations Are Very Common for PostgreSQL, But How Do You Investigate Performance Problems When the Standby Can’t Keep Up? by Boriss Mejías and Derk van Veen
• Conference: PGDay Lowlands 2025, the second year of this “second-best Postgres conference in Europe”
• Conference Schedule: upcoming PGConf EU 2025 in Latvia
• Wikipedia: Chess clock
• Book: Daily Rituals, by Mason Currey
• Article: It Takes Two to Think, by Itai Yanai & Martin J. Lercher
• Poem: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Coleridge
• Wikipedia: City of Bruges Belgium, a good place for beer and cheese
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep33 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Nov 5, 2025