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Hi, my name is

I'm Matty.

I work on databases and data infrastructure, build AI on top of them, and write about the tradeoffs you usually learn the hard way.

I run Developer Advocacy and Docs at Tiger Data. Most of my writing is about what’s actually happening inside the systems you depend on: MVCC and write amplification in Postgres, the walls you hit running analytics on live data, and what goes wrong when you hand a model your database. The rest of my time goes to building things with coding agents, usually on the same data infrastructure I write about. The credibility comes from twenty-plus years of operating infrastructure (sysadmin, SRE, DevOps), not from a marketing deck. Some of that is for work and some of it is for me, which is how I ended up with an app that plans dinner and a health dashboard with strong opinions about my protein intake.

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Matty Stratton

About Me

Matty Stratton

I run Developer Advocacy and Docs at Tiger Data. My writing time mostly goes to databases: what Postgres is doing under the hood, why you hit performance walls, and how to tell a tuning problem from an architecture problem. My building time mostly goes to AI. I built Tiger Den, our internal marketing platform, with coding agents, and it’s grown into something the wider company uses as context for its own agents. That perspective comes from a couple of decades of actually operating the stuff. I started as a sysadmin, did the SRE and DevOps thing, and ran technology operations back before any of those were résumé words. That history is the whole point. It’s a lot easier to write honestly about database tradeoffs when you’ve been the person paged at 3am because of one. Same goes for deciding what a model is allowed to touch. I’m also a longtime conference speaker and organizer, and co-host of the Arrested DevOps podcast.

Skills / Expertise

  • Databases & Data Infrastructure
  • PostgreSQL
  • Time-Series Databases
  • Building with LLMs & Coding Agents
  • MCP & Agentic Workflows
  • Developer Relations
  • Docs as Product
  • DevOps
  • Kubernetes
  • Infrastructure as Code

Building

Things I’ve built lately, mostly with coding agents (Claude Code and Cursor) doing the typing and me making the calls. All of it sits on a real database, because of course it does.

Tiger Den

Next.js · tRPC · Drizzle · Postgres

Tiger Data’s internal marketing platform, and the context layer for everything marketing does with AI. Brand guidelines, voice profiles, reference docs, and the whole content inventory live here, with hybrid keyword and vector search across it. Our marketing team’s 60-plus agent skills pull that context over MCP instead of each keeping its own copy, and every skill run gets logged, so we can see which ones actually earn their keep. The MCP server treats agents as the real users: test-enforced tool descriptions, and errors that list every missing field at once. Non-engineers ship code to it too.

Conducky

Next.js · Express · Prisma · Postgres

Code of conduct incident management for conferences and events. I’ve run conferences for a long time, and handling CoC reports well is one of those things that matters enormously and almost never has real tooling behind it. So I built it: multi-tenant, anonymous reporting, field-level encryption, and open source.

Health data tracker

TimescaleDB · Claude

Pulls my Apple Health data into TimescaleDB, with a deterministic coach view and an ask view where Claude answers questions through read-only tools instead of raw SQL. The data turned out to be the hard part. It usually is.

Daybook

SwiftUI · Next.js · Postgres · Claude

My personal everything app for iPhone and Mac: today’s schedule, workouts, to-dos, and dinner in one place. Claude drafts the week’s dinners from my recipe collection and builds the grocery list, and workouts get planned around my rules and checked against what I actually lifted. One user, never distributed, and a pile of architecture decision records anyway.

Experience

Head of Developer Advocacy and Docs

Tiger Data · 2025 - Present

  • Own developer advocacy, content, and documentation as one function, treating docs as a product surface instead of static reference.
  • Built Tiger Den, the internal marketing platform and context layer for Tiger Data marketing’s AI work, served over MCP to the team’s 60-plus agent skills.
  • Led the migration and re-architecture of the docs platform to Astro, including the API reference and its integration with the Tiger MCP server.
  • Run the KOL program: influencer partnerships and tracked campaigns that reach developers beyond our own channels.

Solution Architect

Turbot · 2025

That was the official title. In practice I ran Turbot’s marketing: developer advocacy, product marketing, community, and brand.

  • Ran campaign strategy and creative for Turbot’s Launch Weeks: announcement posts, demo videos, and end-to-end social campaigns.
  • Launched CloudGovernance.org, a community knowledge hub for cloud policy and automation.
  • Drove community-led growth through online presence, narrative, and cross-channel messaging for technical audiences.

Director, Developer Relations and Growth

Aiven · 2022 - 2024

  • Led global team of developer advocates, educators, community program managers, and growth specialists.
  • Launched online developer workshops program to drive user account signup.
  • Implemented comprehensive metrics program, including trackable CTAs and DevRel Qualified Leads to measure impact on both user growth and account influence.
  • Collaborated with GTM and sales teams to expand usage of Aiven within existing accounts.
  • Built PLG-focused motion on direct adoption of the Aiven platform, including self-service accounts and Product Qualified Leads handed off to sales.
  • Responsible for Self-Service Revenue targets for Direct Adoption.

Staff Developer Advocate

Pulumi · 2021 - 2022

  • Keynote speaker at industry and community conferences on DevOps, Infrastructure as Code, and Cloud Engineering principles.
  • Created and launched the “Puluminaries” community champion program to recognize and build advocates in the Pulumi user community.
  • Engaged cross-functionally with Marketing to align community needs/voice with product marketing messaging and initiatives.
  • Developed a community measurement program to correlate developer advocate actions to community growth, using the Orbit Model.
  • Defined the concepts and pillars of the Cloud Engineering approach for Pulumi users and the larger industry community.

Sales Specialist (Transformation)

Red Hat · 2020 - 2021

  • Built strategic relationships with executives and key leaders to promote Red Hat's portfolio of emerging tech products (cloud, OpenShift/Kubernetes, app dev, business process management, data federation, and more).
  • Engaged as a trusted advisor with senior technology leadership in State/Local public sector agencies around cultural transformation.
  • Created the “Five Elements Assessment” pre-sales tool to drive close of transformational services engagements.
  • Represented the Public Sector Transformation Office at government-focused conferences and panels.

Principal DevOps Advocate

PagerDuty · 2017 - 2020

  • Spoke at industry events worldwide on DevOps, HumanOps, and more to share PagerDuty’s values and principles with the larger community.
  • Authored open-sourced Ops Guides on Incident Response, Operational Reviews, and more.
  • Focused on results-oriented metrics and measurement of the Community and Advocacy team’s effectiveness.
  • Met with senior IT leadership at customers and prospects to share good practices around digital transformation and DevOps.
  • Created and ran the PagerDuty “Breakathon” event, including infrastructure, content, and event management.
  • Mentored other Community team members on speaking, industry practices, and content creation.
  • Worked closely with Product, Marketing, and Sales to provide a voice of the community.

Customer Architect, Senior Solutions Architect

Chef · 2014 - 2017

Managing Consultant

10th Magnitude · 2013 - 2014

Led the 10th Magnitude practice for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Infrastructure Automation, and DevOps consulting engagements, helping clients streamline delivery, eliminate waste, and increase velocity.

Director, Technology Operations

Apartments.com · 2007 - 2013

Publications

A selection of some of my published work.

Understanding Postgres Performance Limits for Analytics on Live Data

tigerdata.com

Why Adding More Indexes Eventually Makes Things Worse

tigerdata.com

The Hidden Costs of Table Partitioning at Scale

tigerdata.com

Write Amplification in Postgres: The 3-4x Tax on Every Insert

tigerdata.com

Public speaking

A few of my favorite talks. The full list lives at speaking.mattstratton.com.

Zero Trust is for Networks, Not Your Teams

GOTO Chicago 2023

Where Do We Go From Here? The Next Level of DevRel Value

DevRelCon Prague 2022

Charting Your Own Course Through the Cloud Native Landscape

KubeCon Europe 2022

Avengers Assemble - The Thanos Incident

All Things Open 2019

Fight, Flight, or Freeze: Releasing Organizational Trauma

Monitorama 2019

Newsletter

Uncommitted

Monthly dispatches on databases, building with AI, and whatever else is rattling around in my head.

Contact

Get in touch

My inbox is always open. Whether you have a question or just want to say hi, I’ll try my best to get back to you!