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How Rizq AI moved 49,500 job-board rows from Airtable to PostgreSQL

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Rizq AI is building a job-automation product: search, match, apply. Airtable could hold early data, but it could not stay the backend of that application: rate limits, Airtable's model, and no real ownership as they scaled. They moved to PostgreSQL they control. AT Migrator migrated 49,500 rows across 5 tables and 95 fields, including 11,997 attachments, with formulas intact.

49,500

Rows migrated

5

Tables

95

Fields

11,997

Attachments

Who is Rizq AI?

Rizq AI is a job-automation product: finding roles, tailoring resumes, and helping people apply. It is founded by Arbaz Yasin Nivsekar, Founder & CEO.

Early on, a lot of the operational data for that product lived in Airtable. That is common. It stops working when Airtable has to act like the engine of the application.

Why leave Airtable?

The goal was never “leave Airtable for its own sake.” The goal was to build a custom application that could grow, and to own the data that application runs on.

Airtable caps how hard a product can push the API. It also decides how relationships and business logic work. For a spreadsheet-style workflow that is fine. For a product backend it becomes a wall: rate limits, and a model that is not yours to reshape.

PostgreSQL is where that product belongs. The data is theirs. They control access and how the system scales. Leaving Airtable only works if the hard parts arrive intact: attachments that applications still open, and formulas that still mean something after cutover.

What was in the base

The Airtable base held their hiring / job-board dataset (the records the product depended on) plus a large attachment footprint (11,997 files). In total: 49,500 rows across 5 tables and 95 fields, with linked records between the main entities.

That mix is where CSV-and-hope migrations fail. You can dump cell text. You cannot casually recreate relationships, computed fields, and file URLs a product still needs the next day.

What AT Migrator did

We ran the same pipeline we use for production cutovers:

  • Schema and relationships: tables mapped to Postgres; linked records became foreign keys or junction tables so the dataset stayed connected.
  • Formulas and rollups: recreated as SQL so values recalculate from source data instead of freezing the last Airtable snapshot.
  • Attachments: files transferred to storage they control; Postgres kept stable references (metadata and URLs), not expiring Airtable links.
  • Validation: row counts and spot-checks on both sides before treating the cutover as done.

Airtable was excellent for the early version. Once we needed a custom product we could control our own way, it stopped fitting the business. We tried migrating ourselves and with other tools, but nothing fully worked. Formulas and linked records felt impossible until we found AT Migrator.

Arbaz Yasin Nivsekar · Founder & CEO, Rizq AI

Outcome

The product's data now lives in PostgreSQL under Rizq AI's control. They can build and grow the application without Airtable's rate limits or model deciding what ships. Attachments and formula logic came across in the migration, so the cutover was something they could trust, not a cleanup project waiting to happen.

If Airtable is still the backend of a product you intend to scale, start with a migration plan or book a discovery call. We will scope records, attachments, and formula risk before you pay.

Not sure if you should migrate yet?

Get a free 30-minute discovery call with a migration engineer. We will look at your bases, estimate the work, and tell you honestly whether Postgres is the right move. No pressure, no obligation.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Quick answers to the questions teams ask most about this topic.

They needed a product backend they own: full control and room to scale, without Airtable rate limits deciding what the app can do.

49,500 rows across 5 tables and 95 fields (12 linked records, 10 lookups, 5 rollups, 8 formulas, 3 counts, 3 attachment fields), including 11,997 attachment files, with formula/rollup logic recreated as SQL.

Yes. Attachments transferred to storage they control with stable URLs in Postgres. Formulas and rollups were recreated as SQL so values recalculate from source data instead of freezing the last Airtable snapshot.

Yes. Book a free discovery call or start from the pricing page. We scope record volume, attachments, and formula risk before you pay.