Why it's fun to hack on Postgres performance with Tomas Vondra

From Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano by Microsoft

February 20, 2026 · 1h 25m · Episode 36

About this episode

Tomas Vondra discusses the challenges and enjoyment of improving Postgres performance.

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…

People in this episode

Host: Claire Giordano

Guest: Tomas Vondra

Topics covered

Postgres performance
query optimization
performance puzzles
benchmarks
code changes impact

Keywords

Postgres
performance
slow queries
benchmarks
query planner
code changes
performance work

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Postgres, PostgreSQL, PGConf.dev, Nordic PGDay, PostgreSQL Hacking, Brendan Gregg