database

A client's PostgreSQL writes were getting slower every quarter. The table had 57 indexes. Only 14 of them were ever used. Every INSERT and UPDATE was paying a tax nobody had thought to audit.

A client's API started throwing 500s every weekday afternoon like clockwork. The database was fine. The queries were fast. The problem was a reporting job that quietly hogged every available connection during peak traffic.

A client's dashboard took 11 seconds to render. Everyone blamed the database. The real problem was an ORM doing exactly what we told it to — we just never looked at what that meant.

A consulting war story about a PostgreSQL-to-MongoDB migration that went sideways, what we missed in planning, and the uncomfortable lessons about knowing when not to migrate.