July 2026 Summaries

An engineer shares insights from two years of experience with PostgreSQL, offering practical advice for optimizing database performance, particularly in production environments. The document begins with foundational tips on schema design, emphasizing the importance of good schema writing due to the difficulty of making changes post-deployment. It discusses the necessity of using primary and foreign keys, the implementation of compound indexes, and the alignment of ORDER BY clauses to improve query efficiency. The guide also covers advanced topics like the query planner, bulk updates, and the significance of autovacuum settings to handle dead tuples and prevent database bloat. Additional advanced features such as FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED and partitioning are explored for their utility in managing job queues and time-series data. The text concludes with strategies for large table migrations using Postgres triggers to maintain consistency without long transactions, highlighting the need for continuous learning and adaptation in managing PostgreSQL at scale.