Google Summer of Code 2025 - A Journey of Growth and Achievement!

Created in November 17, 2025

2025   ·   gsoc   community   postgresql   personal

What a journey! I’m very happy to announce that all seven Google Summer of Code 2025 contributors successfully passed their final evaluations and made great contributions to the PostgreSQL community! 🎉

Back in May, I welcomed these talented people to our community. Now, six months later, I’m proud to celebrate not just the code they wrote, but the journey they made and the community members they’ve become.

A Year Like No Other

This year’s GSoC was something special. We received 213 applications for the PostgreSQL organization alone—the highest number in our 21 years of participating in GSoC! But with this big number came challenges: a lot of spam and AI-generated applications made the selection process very difficult. We requested 9 project slots, but received only 7 because of program-wide limitations.

But from those 213 applications, we found seven great people who achieved a 100% success rate. Not a single contributor failed to complete their project. Think about that for a moment. 💯

The Human Story Behind the Code

What I like most about this year’s group isn’t just the great technical work—though there was a lot of it. It’s the personal growth, the determination, and the way each contributor became part of something bigger than themselves.

Let me introduce you to our seven successful contributors and their remarkable journeys:

Ashutosh Sharma worked on the difficult task of implementing incremental backup for PostgreSQL 13-16 in pgmoneta. When the WAL parser gave unexpected errors, he didn’t just file a bug report—he added debug prints to PostgreSQL’s source code itself to understand the exact byte offsets. That’s the kind of determination that makes a true contributor.

Mohab Yasser created pgmoneta-walfilter, a tool for precise WAL stream manipulation. His words say something important: “This project provided deep exposure to PostgreSQL internals… Reading through PostgreSQL source code to understand WAL record formats was challenging but instructive.” This is what GSoC is about—not just writing code, but becoming an expert in the process.

Tejas Tyagi worked on pgagroal security improvements and described the GSoC experience very well: “This experience has given me the confidence that I can work on and contribute to large, production-grade systems. I had no prior experience with connection poolers or many of the technologies I worked with, but through this project, I’ve developed skills that will serve me throughout my career.”

Bassam Adnan added extension support to pgexporter, implementing metrics for 15+ PostgreSQL extensions. His work on semantic versioning, HTTP API refactoring, and comprehensive testing demonstrates how one project can touch multiple areas and benefit multiple related projects.

Gaurav Patidar modernized pgwatch’s Grafana dashboards for v12. His systematic approach—creating Python scripts to detect deprecated components, then carefully refining each panel—shows the maturity needed for maintenance work that keeps projects accessible to users.

Mankirat Singh built an ABI compliance checker that now runs as “Baza” on the PostgreSQL BuildFarm. His journey from commit-by-commit checking to tag-based comparison, guided by community feedback, illustrates how GSoC teaches contributors to listen, adapt, and align with project needs.

Ahmad Gouda enhanced pgwatch’s RPC integration, migrating from basic Go RPC to gRPC and implementing new sinks for ElasticSearch, Google Cloud pub/sub, and Apache Iceberg. His work shipped with pgwatch v4, demonstrating real-world impact.

Beyond the Technical Achievements

The beauty of GSoC isn’t just in the code—it’s in the transformation of individuals into community members. Let me share what I observed:

Community Bonding That Actually Bonded

Ahmad’s experience shows this very well. He found the PostgreSQL Hacking Discord channel and started attending monthly Hacking Workshops. He contributed to pg_duckdb, adding SQLSmith CI tests. He didn’t just work on his assigned project—he became part of the ecosystem.

Several contributors attended conferences during or after their GSoC period. They presented their work, networked with other community members, and began building the relationships that sustain long-term contributions.

The Debugging Stories

Some of my favorite moments were the “deep dive” debugging sessions:

  • Mohab adding debug prints to PostgreSQL source code to understand WAL parsing
  • Ashutosh discovering that the issue wasn’t in decode_xlog_record but in how pgmoneta_wal_parse_wal_file calculated offsets
  • Tejas tackling transaction pipeline bugs that only manifested with specific IO backends
  • Mankirat learning Perl (a language he’d never used!) to write BuildFarm client modules

These aren’t just technical challenges—they’re experiences that build character and create confident, capable contributors.

Learning New Languages and Frameworks

Look at the diversity of technologies our contributors mastered:

  • Mankirat learned Perl and CGI server setup
  • Bassam worked extensively with C, HTTP protocols, and memory management
  • Ahmad migrated systems from basic RPC to gRPC
  • Tejas deep-dived into TLS/SSL protocols and certificate management

Each contributor stepped outside their comfort zone, proving that passion and persistence matter more than prior expertise.

What Makes a Successful GSoC Experience?

Looking at this year’s group, I see several patterns:

Communication: Every successful contributor engaged actively—on GitHub discussions, mailing lists, Discord channels. They asked questions, provided updates, and sought feedback early and often.

Adaptability: Mankirat’s pivot from commit-by-commit to tag-based comparison, Ahmad’s migration to gRPC after discovering limitations in Go’s RPC—these weren’t failures, they were smart pivots based on community feedback.

Ownership: These contributors didn’t just implement features—they fixed bugs they encountered, improved documentation, and thought about long-term maintainability.

Community Integration: The best contributors didn’t work in isolation. They reviewed each other’s code, discussed approaches, and celebrated each other’s successes.

The Mentor’s Perspective

I want to share something that mentors often don’t say in public: we learn as much from contributors as they learn from us.

This year’s contributors gave us fresh perspectives. They asked “why?” when we thought something was obvious. They suggested solutions we hadn’t thought about. They brought energy and enthusiasm that gave new life to projects.

Several of this year’s mentors are GSoC alumni from previous years. This beautiful cycle—yesterday’s contributors becoming today’s mentors—is the lifeblood of our community.

The Numbers

While this post talks about the journey, let’s not forget the real impact:

  • 7 contributors, all successful! 💯
  • 30+ pull requests merged across multiple projects
  • Code in production releases (pgwatch, pgmoneta, pgagroal, pgexporter)
  • Work in C, Go, Python, Perl, Rust
  • Projects from backup systems to security improvements to monitoring tools

But these numbers tell only part of the story. Each line of code represents hours of learning, debugging, and growth.

Challenges We Faced

This year had its problems. We faced:

  • The biggest number of applications ever (213 for PostgreSQL alone!)
  • A lot of spam and AI-generated applications
  • Fewer slots than we wanted (7 instead of 9)
  • Difficult coordination across distributed teams

But every contributor kept going, showing great determination and adaptability.

A Call to Action: We Need You!

Here’s my most important message: we need more mentors!

The problem isn’t talented contributors—we had 213 applications this year! The problem is we don’t have enough mentors. The more mentors we have, the more projects we can support, the more contributors we can welcome, the stronger our community becomes.

If you’re an experienced PostgreSQL community member, consider becoming a mentor. You don’t need to be a core developer. You need:

  • Experience with PostgreSQL and related tools
  • Time to dedicate during the summer
  • Patience and love for teaching
  • Care for the community

Mentoring is incredibly rewarding. You’ll:

  • Shape the next generation of PostgreSQL contributors
  • Learn from fresh perspectives
  • Strengthen the ecosystem
  • Make lasting connections

Interested? Reach out to me or join our discussions on the mailing lists!

Special Thanks

A special acknowledgment to Jesper Pedersen, my co-admin for the GSoC program. It would be unreal to handle all this work without him! Jesper’s dedication, organizational skills, and mentorship across multiple projects were instrumental to our success.

Thanks also to all the mentors who dedicated countless hours:

  • Akshat Jaimini,
  • Haoran Zhang,
  • Saurav Pal,
  • Rajiv Harlalka,
  • David Wheeler,
  • Luca Ferrari,
  • Shahryar Soltanpour.

And to the broader community who welcomed our contributors, answered questions, reviewed code, and provided encouragement—thank you!

Looking Forward

These seven contributors aren’t finished with PostgreSQL—they’re just getting started. Several have already expressed interest in continuing their work, attending conferences, and becoming long-term community members.

Some of this year’s mentors are GSoC alumni from previous years, showing the beautiful cycle: yesterday’s contributors become today’s mentors, who help tomorrow’s contributors.

Final Thoughts

GSoC 2025 wasn’t just about code merged and features shipped. It was about:

  • Building confidence in young developers
  • Growing a welcoming, inclusive community
  • Showing PostgreSQL’s commitment to education
  • Making paths for new people to contribute

To our seven successful contributors: Congratulations! You’ve proven yourselves. You’ve shipped real code. You’ve joined a global community. You should be incredibly proud.

To everyone reading this: If you’re inspired by these stories, if you want to contribute, if you see yourself in these projects—come join us! The PostgreSQL community welcomes you with open arms.

Until next year’s GSoC, happy Postgres-ing! 💙💛