diff --git a/.circleci/test-server.sh b/.circleci/test-server.sh
index a8e854f54593e..403e0f483178d 100755
--- a/.circleci/test-server.sh
+++ b/.circleci/test-server.sh
@@ -366,8 +366,11 @@ echo -e "\n<########## TEST GRAPHQL-ENGINE WITH HORIZONTAL SCALING ########>\n"
 HASURA_HS_TEST_DB='postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:6543/hs_hge_test'
 psql "$HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL" -c "create database hs_hge_test;"
 
+# create pgbouncer user
+useradd pgbouncer
+
 # start pgbouncer
-pgbouncer -d /root/graphql-engine/.circleci/pgbouncer/pgbouncer.ini
+su -c "pgbouncer -d /root/graphql-engine/.circleci/pgbouncer/pgbouncer.ini" pgbouncer
 
 # start 1st server
 "$GRAPHQL_ENGINE" --database-url "$HASURA_HS_TEST_DB" serve >> "$OUTPUT_FOLDER/graphql-engine.log" 2>&1 & PID=$!
@@ -386,7 +389,7 @@ pytest -vv --hge-url="$HGE_URL" --pg-url="$HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL" --test-h
 psql "postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:6543/pgbouncer" -c "SHUTDOWN;"
 
 # start pgbouncer again
-pgbouncer -d /root/graphql-engine/.circleci/pgbouncer/pgbouncer.ini
+su -c "pgbouncer -d /root/graphql-engine/.circleci/pgbouncer/pgbouncer.ini" pgbouncer
 
 # run test
 pytest -vv --hge-url="$HGE_URL" --pg-url="$HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL" --test-hge-scale-url="http://localhost:8081" test_horizontal_scale.py