Introduction:

I started programming on system nobody knows nowadays. Later on I was working with a lot of different RDBMs and became a fan of COBOL because it is easy to work with data. Because of my early adoption of PostgreSQL I was moved into DBA roles.

Currently I co-manage the PostgreSQL Telegram channel https://t.me/postgreschat. In addition I am a member of the PostgreSQL Europe Diversity Committee.

Journey in PostgreSQL:

I started using PostgreSQL in 1998 for personal projects. At that time I have been working with different RDBMs like Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase to name a few.

But as the license cost was horrible, I started to look for an open source one. At the time I already used Linux for some years. But PostgreSQL did not work on Linux at the time, therefore I used a BSD Unix on an old computer. And PostgreSQL did the job.

Can you share a pivotal moment or project in your PostgreSQL career that has been particularly meaningful to you?

The first project I was able to bring PostgreSQL into that company included PostGIS. Showing other people what could be done with them was fun and surprised people.

As there was only me with some PostgreSQL knowledge, that was the start of doing DBA jobs.

Contributions and Achievements:

I regularly participate in translations for the press releases into German of new PostgreSQL versions.

In addition I work on some extensions, one adds some missing functions, two others are foreign data wrappers, you may find them on https://github.com/sjstoelting.

An important thing to me was to get childcare available at PostgreSQL Conference Europe. The first one we had it was in 2022 in Berlin.

Have you faced any challenges in your work with PostgreSQL, and how did you overcome them?

I attended my first PostgreSQL conference in 2008, but it took until 2016 until I gave my first talk at a conference. The problem at the time was a lack of examples, I have been one of very few women attending and women giving talks was rare.

It is very good, that this has changed, but there is more work to do.

Community Involvement:

I give talks at conferences, have been honoured to be on several program committees, this year it has been Nordic PGDay and the coming PGDay Napoli. In addition I was part of some Code of Conduct committees.

In addition I write blog posts about PostgreSQL related subjects. Several ones are based on questions that came up often on a PostgreSQL Telegram channel, https://t.me/postgreschat, that I co-administrate.

Since last year I am a member of the Diversity Committee of PostgreSQL Europe, https://www.postgresql.eu/diversity/

Can you share your experience with mentoring or supporting other women in the PostgreSQL ecosystem?

Lætitia Avrot started a Postgres Women informal group and she asked me to join. I sponsored tickets to women for some conferences. In addition I try to motivate women to give talks and to attend PostgreSQL conferences.

Insights and Advice:

Don’t be shy, do what you like, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

Are there any resources (books, courses, forums) you’d recommend to someone looking to deepen their PostgreSQL knowledge?

At FOSDEM PGDay I gave a lightning talk about books, you’ll find my recommendations on https://gitlab.com/sjstoelting/talks/-/tree/main/PostgreSQL-Books.FOSDEM-PGDay-2025.

Crunchy Data has a good self learning platform at https://www.crunchydata.com/developers/tutorials where you can run commands in a browser.

And there is a Telegram channel I have already mentioned above, https://t.me/postgreschat.

To get more knowledge of SQL, take a look at Markus Winands https://modern-sql.com.

A starting point for looking something PostgreSQL up, should always be the documentation https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/index.html.

Looking Forward:

There is a patch that got committed recently titled RETURNING OLD/NEW VALUES, https://commitfest.postgresql.org/patch/4723/. In fact it will bring back data time travelling to PostgreSQL, a feature that has been removed in version 6.3.

Do you have any upcoming projects or goals within the PostgreSQL community that you can share?

Improving diversity in as many ways as possible.

Personal Reflection:

The PostgreSQL community is a nice place to be, I made friends with some nice people there. Without that I would have left PostgreSQL behind.

How do you balance your professional and personal life, especially in a field that is constantly evolving?

What I love about IT is, that one never stops learning. For example there hasn’t been a single PostgreSQL conference, where I did not learn something new.

Also do some tourist things in the places, that you visit to attend a conference.

Enjoy your life, meet friends, have some hobbies, mine are photographing and kayaking.

Message to the Community:

Visit conferences, get in contact with the nice PostgreSQL people. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do something, you can!