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Navigate the challenges of hacking on PostgreSQL, from codebase to review culture. Xuneng Zhou (Postgres hacker) introduces his guide in his talk “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to PostgreSQL Hacking: Don’t Panic, Just Start Small” at POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026. Abstract: Hacking on PostgreSQL can feel overwhelming: a massive codebase, a rigorous review culture, and a patch queue that never seems to shrink. Many aspiring contributors ask the same questions: Where do I begin? What should I work on?
This talk offers a practical roadmap for entering PostgreSQL development. Rather than starting with large features or ambitious rewrites, we focus on a disciplined approach: reviewing patches, fixing small bugs, testing edge cases, and building intuition for the codebase.
We explore how small improvements—clarifying a review comment, or isolating a bug—compound into deeper understanding and meaningful contributions. We will also discuss the psychological side of hacking: navigating imposter syndrome, learning from reviews, and turning feedback into momentum.
PostgreSQL is not conquered in a single patch. It is learned incrementally. This talk demonstrates how sustained, focused effort transforms confusion into contribution.
What Attendees Will Learn
– How to choose a first patch
– How patch review builds architectural understanding
– How small changes lead to larger infrastructure work
– How to navigate PostgreSQL’s review culture effectively
– How to turn feedback into growth instead of frustration
Xuneng Zhou is a data systems engineer focused on PostgreSQL internals, open-source databases, and hardware–software co-design. His work spans feature development, performance optimization, and patch review across core PostgreSQL subsystems. He co-authored the WAIT FOR command, enabling precise read-your-writes consistency by waiting on WAL LSN write, flush, or replay. He has also diagnosed and fixed issues in WAL receiver, logical replication, and the checkpointer, and improved performance in various I/O paths.
► Video chapters:
⏩ 00:00 – Music & introduction
⏩ 00:55 – Why Postgres hacking feels intimidating
⏩ 02:40 – Start small with patch reviews
⏩ 04:14 – Navigating mailing lists & CommitFest
⏩ 05:34 – The four layers of patch review
⏩ 08:47 – Reviewing the wait for LSN patch
⏩ 09:40 – read-after-write consistency explained
⏩ 11:43 – Why polling replicas is expensive
⏩ 15:19 – Wait for LSN removes polling overhead
⏩ 17:11 – Benchmarking polling vs wait for LSN
⏩ 18:45 – How community feedback shapes features
⏩ 22:29 – Designing flexible wait for LSN modes
⏩ 23:07 – Lessons learned from Postgres hacking journey
📕 Everything you need to know about POSETTE: An Event for Postgres can be found at: https://posetteconf.com
✅ Learn more: watch more POSETTE talks: https://aka.ms/posette-playlist
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