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Make Simon Tomlinson a database maintainer

Simon Tomlinson requested to merge make-stomlinson-database-maintainer into master

Trainee maintainer issue: #11934 (closed)

Documentation improvement: gitlab-org/gitlab!83863 (merged)

Overview

I've been a member of the database group since June 2021. In addition to doing over 40 database reviews, I've taken charge of the gitlab-com-database-testing project, and am a database stable counterpart for the container registry and vulnerability projects.

Through doing these reviews, I've developed a high proficiency in reading and optimizing complex queries. I can generally read a query, form an optimal query plan in my head, and then compare that to the actual query plan to look for opportunities for improvement.

I've also taken the tedious and difficult parts of the database review process, and begun improving the gitlab-com-database-testing project to automate them wherever possible. I've found that background migrations are the most error-prone and resource-intensive reviews that I've been involved in, so I'm working on tooling that will automate testing batch executions directly in the migration testing framework.

I give comprehensive reviews that include suggestions for authors of why their queries may have problems, and how they can improve them.

Additionally, I've been meeting weekly with another trainee maintainer to go over reviews as they begin their journey towards being a maintainer.

Examples of reviews

Things to improve

  • I often pull query plans for myself, and in doing so, I've missed cases where the MR author has errors in how they pulled their own plans. I need to concentrate more on the MR description and make sure that everything matches up.
  • When I see a problem with an MR, I have trouble sending it back to the author until I have a suggestion for how their problem can be fixed. This ends with me doing a lot of work, and reducing the number of MRs that I review. I've been trying to timebox this process per-review and simply pointing out issues if I don't have a good suggestion for how to fix them immediately.

@gitlab-org/maintainers/database please chime in below with your thoughts, and approve this MR if you agree.

Developer checklist

  • Before this MR is merged
    • Mention @gitlab-org/maintainers/database, if not done (this issue template should do this automatically)
    • Assign this issue to your manager
  • After this MR is merged

Manager checklist

Edited by Alex Ives

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