Interview with Microsoft
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Any views or opinions represented or expressed in this interview belong solely to the interviewee and do not necessarily represent those of the PostgreSQL Conference Germany 2026 organization, PostgreSQL Europe, or the wider PostgreSQL community, unless explicitly stated.
Which of your company's contributions to the PostgreSQL Project (code/community/conference) are you most proud of?
The team at Microsoft is excited about so many of the new capabilities added in Postgres 18 and Postgres 19, but if we had to pick one recent contribution that we’ve contributed to, it would have to be Asynchronous I/O—a game-changing (that is not hyperbole) architectural change that has been years in the making.
PostgreSQL committer Thomas Munro of Microsoft explains it well in Claire Giordano’s blog post:
“Seeing the Async I/O subsystem land in Postgres 18 is really cool. It's a big step forward—a foundation for a whole new I/O architecture that opens the door to modern and efficient I/O technologies. It's been awesome to be able to help Andres Freund with this project (I worked on portability, vectored I/O, streaming APIs, and other preparatory work, and others contributed too—but Andres is the architect and driving force of the new subsystem). Finding a path to land these changes incrementally across releases has been a challenge. And we're not done yet. The interesting work continues.”
If you want to learn more about AIO in Postgres from the architect leading the AIO project, Andres Freund gave a conference talk at PGConf EU 2025 in Riga, and it was recorded. Watch the video of Andres’s talk about AIO in PG 8 and beyond, a talk that covers the limitations of AIO in PG18, the workloads in which it can and can’t help, and by how much it can help (yes, there are performance benchmark charts).
What makes your company a great place to work?
Cornelia Biacsics joined Microsoft in March 2026 and this is how Cornelia describes her experience on the first weeks:
“As someone who recently joined Microsoft, what stood out immediately was how strongly the culture is shaped by collaboration, openness, and learning. Although Microsoft is a very large company, I felt treated as an individual and as a human being from day one.
From the very first moments, it was clear to me that Microsoft cares deeply about its employees and their wellbeing, actively supporting people in becoming the best version of themselves. I noticed that same care in the everyday culture too. It’s an environment where people are encouraged to share knowledge, ask questions, and learn from one another. And there is a strong emphasis on working together across teams and disciplines.
What I appreciate most is the genuine encouragement to engage with the open‑source PostgreSQL community. Whether it’s contributing code, supporting events, or sharing learnings publicly, this support made it easy to feel welcomed, trusted, and motivated to contribute. This is the Microsoft open-source spirit, and I’m happy to be experiencing it firsthand.”