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Karen Jex
Senior Solutions Architect
Main focus: Databases
Twitter handle: @karenhjex
Website/blog: https://karenjex.blogspot.com/
Languages: English, French
City: Haute Savoie, France
Country: France
Topics: women in tech, technology, database, databases, women in it, postgresql, women in technology, postgres
Services: Talk, Workshop management, Consulting, Coaching, Interview
Willing to travel for an event.
Willing to talk for nonprofit.
Karen has spent her whole career so far working with databases which, by her own admission, doesn't make her very interesting to talk to at parties. She was, however, once described as "quite personable for a DBA" which she decided to take as a compliment.
One of Karen's favourite things about her current role, as Senior Solutions Architect at Crunchy Data, is sharing the things she's learnt with other people. She's fortunate enough to be able to travel across Europe, and occasionally beyond, to give talks at database and developer conferences.
Karen recently gave a talk with Lætitia Avrot titled "Trying to be Barbie in Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House" where she discussed the challenges faced by women in tech, and some of the things we can do to support each other and to bring about meaningful change.
She is also an active member of the PostgreSQL community, co-organising the pgDay Paris event and assisting with various other community events.
Examples of previous talks / appearances:
Talk given with Lætitia Avrot at PostgreSQL Europe 2023 in Prague. We will be giving the talk at other conferences in 2024, improving and adapting it to include up to date and relevant information.
Let’s talk about what it’s like for women in tech!
Taking inspiration from the most popular movie of 2023, Barbie, we unravel the challenging journey of women navigating a male-dominated tech world. In this engaging discussion, we share poignant stories that highlight both subtle and overt instances of gender bias, offering valuable insights into the persistent hurdles that women encounter. By examining these narratives, we aim to foster awareness, encourage reflection, and inspire action to create a more inclusive and equitable IT landscape for everyone.
Join us for an eye-opening exploration that paves the way for meaningful change in Ken’s mojo dojo casa house.
This talk is in: English
Talk given at Helvetic Ruby 2023 in Bern, Switzerland (also given at PyCon UK 2023 in Cardiff, UK)
You don't want to spend too much time looking after your database; you've got better things to do with your time, but you do want your database to run smoothly and perform well. Fortunately, there are a few simple things that you can do to make sure your database ticks along nicely in the background.
I've put together my top 5 tips, based on things that have been useful to me as a DBA. The focus will be on Postgres, but most of the tips are also relevant to other databases. These are things you can put in place, without too much effort, to make sure your database works well.
Talk given in the 2024 FOSDEM PostgreSQL Devroom in Brussels, Belgium.
Lots of people who have “looking after databases” as part of their remit aren't actually database administrators. The task seems to fall more and more often to people whose expertise lies in other areas, such as systems administrators. I've noticed this particularly in organisations where everything’s running on Kubernetes, and the databases are seen as just another part of that landscape.
If you're in this situation, what do you do? Go out and learn to be a database administrator? Hope the databases will look after themselves? Panic?
A better option would probably be to implement one of the Kubernetes operators that have been created by database experts. The Operator not only knows how to do database administration but also how the database components interact with Kubernetes to get the most out of its features. It will automate everything from deployment of a high availability database environment to backup and recovery, monitoring and even upgrades.
Let’s have a look at what a Kubernetes database operator can do for you and what you need to look for when choosing one.
This talk is in: English