How I went from Oracle to Postgres with a big NoSQL detour with Gwen Shapira | Talking Postgres Ep38
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.Chapters:
⏩ 00:00 Music & introduction
⏩ 02:44 The DBA who knew everything
⏩ 10:02 It's always the consultant's fault
⏩ 15:47 Building multi-tenant Postgres is the hard part
⏩ 22:00 Mailing lists & readable source code
⏩ 29:43 NoSQL taught me to appreciate relational
⏩ 36:08 Blogging created my whole career
⏩ 44:55 Riddle: adding & removing a column 2000 times
⏩ 52:43 Learning from epic failures
⏩ 57:26 Sketching out every slide on paper first
⏩ 1:03:40 A store for bad database jokes
📜 Full transcript available at: https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/how-i-went-from-oracle-to-postgres-with-a-big-nosql-detour-with-gwen-shapira/transcript
✅ Listen to more episodes of Talking Postgres:
https://talkingpostgres.com
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Previously on Talking Postgres:
🔹 Talking Postgres podcast Ep15 with Michael Christofides: https://youtu.be/mlti_9eD3w0?si=sVdHVt2kUtvJvCze
🔹 Talking Postgres podcast Ep24 with Robert Haas: https://youtu.be/4wSDnx8di6o?si=Jmo2jukTUmbnkw13
🔹 Talking Postgres podcast Ep30 with Simon Willison: https://youtu.be/8SAqeJHsmRM?si=YVyn0RTUBNYBQqrb
More Links mentioned in this episode:
🔹 Nile: https://www.thenile.dev/
🔹 PostgreSQL Happiness Hints on Ardent Performance Computing blog: https://ardentperf.com/happiness-hints/
🔹 Book: Just Use Postgres! by Denis Magda: https://www.manning.com/books/just-use-postgres
🔹 GitHub repo for HypoPG: https://github.com/HypoPG/hypopg
🔹 Wikipedia page: Codd’s 12 rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codd's_12_rules
🔹 Gwen’s most popular blog post (ever!) about Transaction Isolation in Postgres: https://www.thenile.dev/blog/transaction-isolation-postgres
🔹 Postgres.FM podcast: https://postgres.fm/
🔹 PostgreSQL Hacking discord server: https://discord.gg/bx2G9KWyrY
Upcoming conferences & talks mentioned:
🔹 PGConf.dev 2026 in Vancouver Canada: https://2026.pgconf.dev/
🔹 PGConf.dev 2026 schedule: https://2026.pgconf.dev/schedule/tuesday
🔹 Upcoming 14 Apr 2026 CFP for PGConf.dev Community Discussion Sessions: https://2026.pgconf.dev/cfp
🔹 PGConf EU 2026 in Valencia: https://2026.pgconf.eu/
🔹 PGConf.dev 2026 conference t-shirt, celebrating 30 years of Postgres: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7445137219297714176
🔹 POSETTE 2026 talk: The Rise of PostgreSQL as the Everything Database, by Varun Dhawan: https://posetteconf.com/2026/talks/the-rise-of-postgresql-as-the-everything-database/
🔹 PGConf.dev 2026 Panel: Real-Time Patch Idea Evaluation: https://2026.pgconf.dev/session/512
🔹 PGConf.dev 2026 Roundtable: Unexpected Successes & Epic Failures by PostgreSQL committers: https://2026.pgconf.dev/session/637
🔹 Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep39 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed May 06, 2026: https://aka.ms/TalkingPostgres-Ep39-cal
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