(author here) I think this should also be possible with MySQL's stored functions, but one huge benefit to PostgreSQL is the schema/tablespace feature, since it means all our logical shards all live inside one database (you could do something similar with MySQL, but it would mean multiple databases or prefixing table names with the shard ID).

PostgreSQL schemas are very similar to MySQL databases in functionality. In fact, in MySQL you can use SCHEMA in all places you can use the term database, ie. CREATE SCHEMA foo; instead of CREATE DATABASE foo;