How did you get into databases?

Cornelia BiacsicsPrincipal Program Manager @Microsoft

When did you first hear about PostgreSQL?

Since we mentioned university, I remember there was a course about databases, and I'm sure that PostgreSQL was mentioned there. But I didn't really have a connection to PostgreSQL back then. When I joined CYBERTEC in 2022, that was the point where I really entered the PostgreSQL world and discovered the community around it.

Flora BarrieleOracle Database@AWS EMEA Black Belt

How did you end up in IT?

I've always liked it since I was a kid. As a teenager, I had a computer in my room, I played the Sims and games like that. I was simply drawn to playing on the computer. Quite young, around 13-14 years old, I said I wanted to do something in programming. As a little girl, I was convinced I wanted to make video games.

Yves ColinCustomer Engineer Data Management @Google

What attracted you to the world of databases?

Honestly, at the start, I got into this field somewhat by chance. But what quickly drew me in was that it really touches everything. There's the architectural vision, system design, on one side, and understanding the deep mechanisms, the famous internals, on the other. I loved digging into how a database is really managed under the hood, whether transactional or NoSQL: the complexity of the algorithms, ACID property management, etc. The idea is to understand how to design the best possible system. That's really what appeals to me: the overall system vision combined with being able to rely on very deep knowledge of internals to improve and optimize an architecture as a whole.

Damien ClochardCo-founder & Product Owner @Dalibo

What were you doing before PostgreSQL?

I was already doing quite a bit of open source, but I had kind of veered off. I was working more on cartography projects, or networking projects, Wi-Fi, back when Wi-Fi was just getting started, in the early 2000s. So I had a bit of a detour. After graduating from engineering school, I went 180 degrees in a different direction.

Ege GüneşTeam Lead, Kubernetes Operators @Percona

How did you get into databases?

After my first company, I moved into a DevOps role where I managed an existing large-scale infrastructure. That was my first exposure to technologies like MySQL, NDB Cluster, and Cassandra. At the time, I wasn't particularly interested in databases. After about a year, I started missing software development. My work had become mostly operational: something would break, I'd fix it, and move on. I wanted to build things again. While looking for a new role, I found a job posting for an "Open Source Go Developer." The website looked a bit sketchy, but the open source aspect caught my attention. A recruiter later told me the company was Percona.

Matt CornillonData Cloud & AI Specialist @Google

What attracts you to PostgreSQL?

The first answer, the obvious one, is the open source aspect. I have always had a strong appetite for open source, especially for everything related to sharing and community. It is something I have always recognized myself in. Even back at SUPINFO, before PostgreSQL was even part of the picture, there was already that spirit of mutual help and knowledge sharing in the internal communities. And that is exactly what I find today in the Postgres ecosystem.

Cedric VillemainPresident / CEO @Data bene

How did you end up in databases?

I got my first job in web, at a company called JFG Network, an obscure name for a company that ran a site called Overblog, one of the first major French blogging platforms. I was the first employee of that startup, which was really fun. I came in as a developer, around 2004 to 2007. We faced major challenges, big projects with heavy loads. It ended up being a big deal: Médiamétrie called us asking us to agree to be counted in their ratings because we were disrupting their counters.

Mikaël FrancoeurSoftware Engineer @Turso

How did you end up in databases?

When I was working at Ticketmaster, we had pretty strict performance constraints on our MySQL databases. So I started reading as much of the MySQL documentation as I could to understand transaction isolation, query plans, EXPLAIN, query optimization, and how data is structured on disk. At some point, I submitted a talk about MySQL transactions to a conference in Montreal called ConFoo. Preparing for that talk pushed me to study even more.

Bertrand DrouvotSenior Database Engineer @AWS

How did you discover databases?

Databases were actually my first assignment when I started working at a services company. I enjoyed it, so I stayed in that field. What makes databases interesting is that they touch everything: operating systems, networking, security, and software development. It is a very cross-functional domain where you can invest yourself in several areas at once. You never really get bored.