Gwen Shapira on Technical Blogging

“Blogging connected me to like-minded people, and through this network, I found work I loved. You could say that blogging created my whole career.”

Gwen Shapira brings a grounded pragmatism to everything she’s involved with. An engineer (and now Nile co-founder) who’s often on the front line with users, she’s developed a direct yet empathetic communication style focused on helping others succeed.

For years, Gwen has been sharing that expertise as a prolific blogger, conference presenter, and co-author of the popular O’Reilly Kafka guide. If you’ve watched her talks or read her writing, you know to expect deep technical experience punctuated with memorable zingers – and perhaps a cat or two along the way. If not, you can catch up here.

Here’s how Gwen responded to the questions we’ve been asking our favorite tech bloggers…

Why did you start blogging – and why do you continue?

I started blogging back in 2007. Almost 20 years ago! Blogging was new and exciting back then. “Web 2.0” started trending. The idea that the web isn’t like a newspaper where authors publish and readers read, but it can be more social and include comments, responses, reactions and interactions. The internet as a place to exchange ideas with smart people all over the world really appealed to me back then, and it is still something that I look for today.

There were people I admired and looked up to who were early bloggers. Tom Kyte (from Oracle’s AskTom fame), Jonathan Lewis and Cary Millsap come to mind. I read their blogs and found them entertaining and educational. Their example inspired me to start my own blog, and also influenced my own writing style to a large extent.

The last bit of motivation was provided by my job. At the time, I was kinda bored with my job and felt that my ideas went unheard. A blog was a great outlet for my ideas. And paradoxically, by forcing myself to blog daily, I had to find interesting things to write about. By actively diving deeper and looking for the interesting bits in my job, my day job became interesting again!

What has been the most surprising impact of blogging for you?

Today, the importance of building a personal brand and networking through social media is very well understood. But back when I started blogging, I couldn’t have predicted that every single job I’ll find will be through my blog.

Blogging connected me to like-minded people, and through this network, I found work I loved. You could say that blogging created my whole career.

What blog post are you most proud of and why?

This is the first blog post I ever published: https://prodlife.wordpress.com/2007/06/15/why-im-still-not-using-asm/

I’m proud of having published it. Even though, in retrospect, it is… less than great. But still, a few folks reacted to it and it encouraged me to keep publishing. I wrote almost every day back then. Soon, I found my voice and my style. I’m actually surprised by how quickly this happened.

My favorite types of posts are:

1. “how to” posts: Sometimes inspired by a tricky issue I encountered, by a new tool that I learned how to use, or just an excuse to dive into system internals.

Here’s my first post of this type: https://prodlife.wordpress.com/2007/07/06/how-high-can-you-go

And a recent one: https://www.thenile.dev/blog/drop-column

2. ”someone is wrong (or right) on the internet” posts: I love interacting with other people’s ideas. Sometimes I agree with them and can share my own examples of how their ideas are helpful. Sometimes I disagree and share my opposing view with my anecdotes or data. Sometimes I argue with a general idea rather than an individual. I love writing “myth busting” posts for this reason.

Here’s an early example of this: https://prodlife.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/data-types-and-cost-based-optimization/

And a recent one: https://www.thenile.dev/blog/pgvector_myth_debunking

Your advice for people just getting started with blogging?

This is a cliche by now, but the best advice I have is: Just write that blog (and publish it). I haven’t regretted a single blog that I published (although I do find some embarrassing). I had blogs that I was scared to publish and clicked “post” anyway. I wrote things that turned out to be wrong, and smart people called me out on it. But in almost 20 years of blogging, nothing bad ever happened as a result of publishing a blog.

The other advice is to be thoughtful about how you connect with people online. The social media climate changed a lot since 2007. Back then, it was all nerds sharing ideas and helping each other. As a nerd myself, it was easy to see myself as part of this group and join the conversation. These days, social media is noisy and competitive. Joining the conversation doesn’t feel like joining a table with 20 friendly nerds. Instead, it feels like trying to be the most popular kid in a school with 10 billion students.

If your goals around blogging are like mine: Connect with like-minded people and form communities where we help each other out. You’ll want to be thoughtful about your own sensibilities and “vibes”. Social platforms like LinkedIn and X can help you “go big” but require an eye toward marketing and a thick skin. Substack and community Discords can be smaller and more supportive. Personally, I’m still looking for my own way to connect with like-minded people in 2026.

A few blogs that you particularly enjoy?

I’ve been following Jeremy Schneider more-or-less since the day I started blogging, and his writing is still one of my favorites. It helps that we both moved from blogging about Oracle to blogging about Postgres!

I met Gunnar Morling through the Kafka community, and I love that his blog ranges through many different technical topics from a software engineering perspective. His writing also tracked my own interests from Kafka and streams to Postgres.

I enjoy reading in-depth distributed systems topics. My favorites are Murat Demirbas and Marc Brooker. Both mix theory and real-world experience in a way that I find both engaging and useful.

Simon Willison posts a lot. Possibly too much for me to keep up with. But he’s a great source of information about AI.

Benn Stancil writes about data analytics and has a unique writing style that I love. It also helps that he posts every Friday, like clockwork.

Netflix and Cloudflare are my favorite “company blogs” with in-depth technical content.

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Note: Gunnar and Simon also responded to our questions. And Murat’s responses will be featured quite soon.