This site is about a previous instance of this event. For the current event, please see the updated site.

Speaker Interview with Claire Giordano

Could you briefly introduce yourself?
My last name is Giordano but I’m not Italian, rather, I’m half Greek and half Irish. Still, you don’t have to be Italian to be excited that PGConf.EU is in Milan this year. :)
I started my career as a software engineer in the developer tools group at Sun Microsystems, and then spent the bulk of my time at Sun as an engineering manager in the operating systems group. And I first started working in open source over 10 years ago.
After joining Citus as VP of marketing 2-½ years ago (based in San Francisco, California) I’ve learned that databases are interesting (you knew that already) and have become a big fan of Postgres. And as a result of the Citus acquisition earlier this year, I now work on the Postgres team at Microsoft. You can find me on Twitter at @clairegiordano.
Have you enjoyed previous pgconf.eu or FOSDEM conferences, either as an attendee or as speaker?
Yes. This is my 2nd time at PGConf.EU as a speaker, and I’ve also had the privilege of being a speaker at Nordic PGDay and Swiss PGDay. At FOSDEM earlier this year I volunteered in the Postgres devroom, too. I love the PGConf.EU conference and am thrilled to be coming back.
What will your talk be about, exactly? Why this topic?
My talk is about the non-coding ways people can contribute to Postgres. I spent the first 16 years of my career in engineering and since then I’ve led product management and product marketing teams. And one thing I’ve learned is that “if you build it, they will NOT come.” Even the best technologies need people to promote it, document it, explain it, demo it, help newcomers understand it, and make the world aware. And if you want talented people to contribute in these non-code ways, then it’s important to make people aware of these opportunities to contribute—and to recognize and reward this work!
What is the audience for your talk?
Everybody who cares about growing the Postgres community and ecosystem and user base. Whether you are just getting started with Postgres or have been part of the Postgres world for a long time, my intent is that you leave this talk with tips and ideas of new ways to contribute (and an appreciation for the many different types of contributions to our growth.)
What existing knowledge should the attendee have?
This is a beginner to advanced talk. What’s more important than knowledge is to bring your curiosity—and the motivation to see Postgres benefit even more people on this planet.
Which other talk at this year's conference would you like to see?
I’m excited to see the talk about “The TopN extension: maintaining top 10 lists at scale”, partly because I know how excited Furkan Sahin (the presenter) is to be giving his first-ever PGConf.EU talk—and partly because I think the use case at Algolia that inspired TopN is super interesting.
What do Fibonacci spirals have to do with Postgres?
You’ll have to come to my talk to find out! I will tell you this, though: Fibonacci Spirals are fascinating and once you learn to recognize them you’ll see Fibonacci spirals in all sorts of surprising places.