We were in crisis mode. Every week brought a new Sev0. Our database was going down repeatedly, bleeding money and eroding customer trust. Something had to change—fast.
Enter Sean, who took ownership in the most literal way possible.
The Problem That Was Killing Us 💀
- Weekly database outages disrupting thousands of users
- Escalating infrastructure costs eating into our runway
- 33% slower latencies frustrating our customers
- Engineering morale plummeting from constant firefighting
One Engineer. One Mission. Zero Committee Meetings.
While most companies would form a task force, create a 6-month migration plan, and debate endlessly, Sean did something different. He rolled up his sleeves and single-handedly migrated our entire database to PostgreSQL.
No endless planning meetings. No bureaucracy. Just pure engineering ownership.
The Results Speak for Themselves 📊
Before Migration:
- Weekly outages
- $150K+ annual database costs
- 300ms average latency
- Stressed on-call team
After Migration:
- ZERO outages since migration ✅
- $110,000+ annual savings 💰
- 200ms average latency (33% faster) ⚡
- Happy engineers, happy customers
This Is How We Build at Motion
Sean's story isn't unique at Motion—it's our standard. We believe in:
- Complete ownership: See a problem? Own the solution.
- Swift execution: Ship fast, iterate faster.
- Impact over process: Results matter more than meetings.
Why We're Sharing This
We're launching the Motion engineering blog because stories like Sean's deserve to be told. Real engineering. Real impact. Real lessons learned.
Whether it's database migrations, scaling challenges, or innovative solutions—we'll share the unfiltered truth about building products that matter.
Read the full technical deep-dive: Migrating to Postgres
We're hiring engineers who think like Sean. If you see a problem and your first instinct is to fix it rather than schedule a meeting about it, let's talk! https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/motion/4f5f6a29-3af0-4d79-99a4-988ff7c5ba05
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