Philippe Noël

About the Speaker

• Tell us about yourself: career, family, passions

  I grew up in a small French-speaking town in Québec, moved to the US for university. I worked on a web browser product for a few years out of college and then started working on ParadeDB to build better full-text search in Postgres.

• What is your icebreaker for PostgreSQL events?

  Hi, how's it going? :) (I don't have any!)

• What would you say is your superpower?

  Self-reflection and turning that into a tight learning cycle

• Which book are you reading right now and why did you choose it?

  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was recommended by a friend.

• What is your favorite hobby?

  Badminton

About the Talk

• Tell us about your talk? Why did you choose this topic?

  I'll be speaking about the state of full-text search in Postgres and how we are building a Postgres extension, pg_search, to improve it to be competitive with Elasticsearch. This is what we work on day-to-day and probably the only thing I can reasonably claim to be an expert on when it comes to Postgres.

• Who would benefit the most from your talk and why?

  Anyone who is interested in enabling user-facing search/filterin/dashboarding experiences on top of their Postgres data.

• What are you looking forward to, the most, during your talk?

  Hearing from the audience!

• What existing knowledge should an attendee have?

  Existing knowledge of what full-text search is used for and existing solutions in Postgres like ts_vector is useful for sure, but I don't think there is any required knowledge. It's meant to be very beginner friendly.

• Which other talk at this year’s conference would you like to watch and why?

  I'm really excited for this one by Tomas Vondra: Performance Archaeology - 20 years of improvements

  Postgres history is just so interesting :) I love understanding how we got to today.

About PostgreSQL

• What inspired you to work with PostgreSQL?

  It's just such a good database. A few years of experience with it and everyone I know using it, probably.

• What is your favorite PostgreSQL feature?

  The extension framework

• What is the single thing that you think differentiates PostgreSQL most from other databases?

  Really really extensible.

• What is your favorite PostgreSQL extension or tool? And why?

  pgvector. It is really well built, and integrates well with pg_search

• What advice would you give to someone starting their journey with PostgreSQL?

  Learning the internals and reading the source code is actually really valuable, even as a user. It's very well written.

• What are your favorite resources for learning about PostgreSQL?

  The source code, postgresqlco.nf, pgrx, and the official docs

• Could you share a memorable experience or challenge you faced while working with PostgreSQL?

  Probably integrating our pg_search extension with the Postgres block storage system. It is incredibly well designed, but a lot of work to wrestle with!

• In your opinion, what are the most common pitfalls or mistakes developers make when working with PostgreSQL?

  Putting too much data in a single table rather than defining a thoughtful data model and using partitions

• Which skills are a must-have for a PostgreSQL user/developer?

  Good knowledge of database internals (developer).

• What is the most overlooked thing about PostgreSQL?

  How powerful and scalable it can be if used properly

• PostgreSQL is opensource, did that ever help you in anyway and how?

  Of course! We build our product on top of it

• If you had a magic wand, what single thing would you change in PostgreSQL as it is today?

  delete support in index AM!

About POSETTE & Events

• Have you enjoyed previous POSETTE (formerly Citus Con) conferences, either as an attendee or as a speaker? If so, what did you enjoy most about it?

  I really like the caliber and breadth of topics. It is unlike other conferences.

• What motivated you to speak at this year’s POSETTE: An Event for Postgres?

  I enjoyed the talks last year.

• What other PostgreSQL events in 2025 are you excited about and why?

  PGconf NYC 2025! Jkatz and team always put a really good conference together.

• What advice would you give to fellow speakers preparing for a PostgreSQL conference?

  I don't know if I'm in a place to give advice to other peers. I'm new to this myself!

• What would be helpful to know for a first-time speaker?

  Just have fun, the rest sorts itself out :)

• Could you share a memorable moment from a previous PostgreSQL conference you attended or spoke at?

  I really enjoyed the JKatz keynote at PGConf NYC 2024 :)