Open Source Leadership with Bruce Momjian
What does it take to lead a global open source project like Postgres? In Episode 26 of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, we sit down with Bruce Momjian—co-founder and core team member of the PostgreSQL Global Development Group—to explore the art of leadership in a volunteer-run open source community. Bruce shares what “servant leadership” really means; how saying I’m sorry can help make problems go away; and how letting go of who-gets-the-credit can fuel collaboration. We also dive into Bruce’s origin story, from shaping Postgres’s early days to mastering the art of public speaking. Pro tip: if you see a man in a bow tie at a Postgres conference, be sure to say hello—it’s probably Bruce Momjian!
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Open source project website: postgresql.org
- Website: Bruce Momjian
- Video of talk: Building Open Source Teams at FOSDEM 2023
- Slides: FOSDEM talk on Building Open Source Teams
- Wikipedia: John C. Maxwell
- Harry Truman quote: It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit
- The New Stack: How to Generate AI From a Database
- EDB Blog: Bruce Momjian’s Insights from PGConf India 2025
- Conference schedule: PGConf India 2025
- Book: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
- Video of talk: Why Database Teams Need Crew Resource Management by Chris Travers
- Wikipedia: Anna Karenina principle
- Talking Postgres podcast: Why mentor Postgres developers with Robert Haas
- Discord invite: PostgreSQL Hacking server
- Mailing lists: PostgreSQL mailing lists
- Conference: PostgreSQL Conference Nepal 2025 happening May 5-6
- Conference: PostgreSQL Conference Germany 2025 on May 8-9
- Conference: POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2025 on Jun 10-12
- Upcoming POSETTE 2025 keynote: Databases in the AI Trenches by Bruce Momjian
- Conference: SouthEast | LinuxFest on Jun 13-15 in Charlotte NC
- Conference: Swiss PGDay 2025 happening Jun 26-27
- Conference: PGDay Austria 2025 happening in Vienna on Sep 4
- Conference: PGDay UK 2025 happening in London on Sep 9
- Conference: PGDay Lowlands 2025 happening in Rotterdam on Sep 12
- Video from PGConf.dev 2024: Making PostgreSQL Hacking More Inclusive
- Talking Postgres podcast: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David Rowley
- Wikipedia: O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON)
- Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep27 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed May 07 with guest Peter Farkas. The topic: “How I got started with FerretDB (& why we chose Postgres)”
Creators and Guests

Host
Claire Giordano
Claire Giordano is head of the Postgres open source community initiatives at Microsoft. Claire has served in leadership roles in engineering, product management, and product marketing at Sun Microsystems, Amazon/A9, and Citus Data. At Sun, Claire managed the engineering team that created Solaris Zones, and led the effort to open source Solaris.

Producer
Aaron Wislang
Open Source Engineering + Developer Relations at Microsoft + Azure ☁️ | Go (golang), Cloud Native, Linux 🐧 🐍 🦀 ☕ 🍷📷 🎹 | Toronto 🇨🇦🌎 | 💨😷💉 | https://aaronw.dev/hello/
