Pete was more interested in the early internet, Unix operating systems, and open-source software than in mechanical engineering. He found the internet and computing more compelling and wanted to pursue a career in IT instead.
Pete started a dial-up internet service business in a rural community, helping people get online and providing technical support for their connections.
Pete's interest in diving led him to join a local dive rescue program, which eventually introduced him to emergency response. He became an EMT and later joined a volunteer fire department and mountain rescue team.
Pete was a Technical Account Manager (TAM) assigned to Amazon.com, one of AWS's largest customers. His role involved supporting internal teams at Amazon as they adopted AWS services and migrated off Oracle databases.
The two major initiatives were adopting cloud services like EC2 and migrating off Oracle databases. This involved moving 7,500 Oracle databases and 75 petabytes of data to AWS services like DynamoDB, Redshift, and Aurora.
Pete's favorite job was his early role at Northwest Net, a small team of highly skilled individuals working on groundbreaking internet infrastructure, including DNS and other foundational technologies.
Pete transitioned to product management because he was frustrated by the slow pace of solving customer problems. He believed that as a product manager, he could directly influence and prioritize solutions to customer needs.
Pete believes that the trend toward purpose-built databases has gone too far, creating unnecessary complexity. He argues that many problems can be solved with a general-purpose database like Postgres, with the right extensions and configurations.
Pete sees a lot of hype around AI and databases, similar to the early days of the internet. He believes that many AI projects will fail or be retired, and that the focus should be on making existing databases more flexible and powerful rather than creating new categories like vector databases.
Pete acknowledges that while open source databases like Postgres are powerful, many large enterprises prefer the convenience and support of proprietary solutions. He sees a balance between open source contributions and paid support as a sustainable model for the future.
From switching ISPs to migrating Amazon off Oracle, Pete Naylor knows which database to use.
Changelog++ members get a bonus 8 minutes at the end of this episode and zero ads. Join today!
Sponsors:
Featuring:
Show Notes:
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!