optimizing database connections in high-traffic applications dont you hate slow apps

Hey everyone, I'm stuck on how to handle database connections in our busy microservice setup. When traffic spikes, we're running out of connections and requests are failing. We do use connection pooling already, but I suspect the default settings aren't enough. Has anyone managed to tweak their connection pools effectively, or tried something different, like connection multiplexing or even a proxy like PgBouncer? What did you learn from it, and how did it affect performance?