How I went from Oracle to Postgres (with a big NoSQL detour) with Gwen Shapira

From Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano by Microsoft

April 10, 2026 · 1h 7m · Episode 38

About this episode

Gwen Shapira discusses her journey from Oracle to Postgres, highlighting the loyalty developers have for Postgres and the insights gained from her experiences.

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…

People in this episode

Host: Claire Giordano

Guest: Gwen Shapira

Topics covered

Postgres
database loyalty
NoSQL
consulting
blogging
PGConf.dev

Keywords

Postgres
Oracle
NoSQL
consulting
PGConf.dev
Codd
blogging
database

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Nile, PostgreSQL, Ardent Performance Computing

Books & works: Just Use Postgres!