Sam Lambert (CEO @ PlanetScale) on building tools developers actually trust

What defines a truly great developer experience?

Sam Lambert is the CEO at PlanetScale, building the next-generation cloud database. Previously Sam was Vice President of Engineering at GitHub, where he was responsible for scaling the company and culture to the world's largest platform for developers with over 100 million users. He was also responsible for creating GitHub Actions, the popular workflow automation tool. Prior to GitHub, Sam led the traffic and video infrastructure teams at Facebook. He is passionate about developer experience and delivering high quality software at scale.

Sam joins us this week for an unfiltered conversation on what it takes to build tools developers trust. From scaling GitHub to reinventing how teams manage database workflows, Sam has been behind the scenes of some of the most developer-loved platforms of the last decade.

Hosted by Stefan Avram and Jens Neuse, we talk DevEx, open source, monetization, collaboration, and where databases are headed next.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

Trust over Table Stakes
Dark mode, a CLI, a working UI: these are baseline features, not innovation. Sam unpacks why trust is the foundation of any great developer experience, and how long-term thinking beats short-term applause.

From Vitess to DevOps for Databases
When Sam joined PlanetScale, the company was transitioning from simply offering the Vitess technology to delivering a MySQL database with a “compelling developer workflow”. We’ll explore how Sam helped articulate that product vision and build trust with users.

Data Federation Meets API Federation
PlanetScale unifies data across shards, regions, and database types. WunderGraph unifies APIs. Together, they offer a complementary model for modern teams. We explore how customers are using both types of tools, and what makes collaboration at scale actually work.

AI, Agents, and the Next Database Paradigm
We couldn’t end without asking Sam how AI is shifting the way PlanetScale works, and how he sees the future. What does the rise of agents and new protocols (cough, MCP) mean for databases? And what trends is Sam betting on for the next five years?

Why PlanetScale Metal is so fast
Sam breaks down the architectural decisions behind their high-performance Postgres and MySQL offerings. He explains how they run petabytes of state on bare metal inside Kubernetes and why most cloud databases leave performance on the table.

Lessons from 55 people with 100% uptime
With just 55 employees, PlanetScale runs one of the most trusted database platforms. Sam explains how a tiny infra team, a “no passengers” culture, and zero sysadmins help them outperform hyperscalers with 10 times the headcount.

The Open Source Advantage
Sam, Stefan & Jens explore how OSS enabled PlanetScale’s early growth, how they think about building on top of OSS today, and what Sam really thinks about the CNCF situation.

Building for Scale
Sam opens up about his obsession with scale. He talks about spinning up 500-node clusters at the press of a button and living vicariously through the success of their customers.

If you're building developer tools, designing distributed systems, or just want a fresh perspective on where infrastructure is headed, this one’s for you.

Jump into the comments or live chat! We want to hear:

What does “developer experience” mean to you?
Are databases finally part of DevOps?
Is open source still the best way to start something big?

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