diff --git a/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile b/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile
index 6233eaf709..e6e6053554 100644
--- a/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile
+++ b/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile
@@ -1971,7 +1971,8 @@ COPY --from=sql_exporter_preprocessor --chmod=0644 /home/nonroot/compute/etc/sql
 COPY --from=sql_exporter_preprocessor --chmod=0644 /home/nonroot/compute/etc/neon_collector_autoscaling.yml /etc/neon_collector_autoscaling.yml
 
 # Make the libraries we built available
-RUN echo '/usr/local/lib' >> /etc/ld.so.conf && /sbin/ldconfig
+COPY --chmod=0666 compute/etc/ld.so.conf.d/00-neon.conf /etc/ld.so.conf.d/00-neon.conf
+RUN /sbin/ldconfig
 
 # rsyslog config permissions
 # directory for rsyslogd pid file
diff --git a/compute/etc/ld.so.conf.d/00-neon.conf b/compute/etc/ld.so.conf.d/00-neon.conf
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..e8e4bdcd42
--- /dev/null
+++ b/compute/etc/ld.so.conf.d/00-neon.conf
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+/usr/local/lib
diff --git a/docker-compose/compute_wrapper/shell/compute.sh b/docker-compose/compute_wrapper/shell/compute.sh
index 723b2f8afb..20a1ffb7a0 100755
--- a/docker-compose/compute_wrapper/shell/compute.sh
+++ b/docker-compose/compute_wrapper/shell/compute.sh
@@ -14,6 +14,14 @@ PG_VERSION=${PG_VERSION:-14}
 CONFIG_FILE_ORG=/var/db/postgres/configs/config.json
 CONFIG_FILE=/tmp/config.json
 
+# Test that the first library path that the dynamic loader looks in is the path
+# that we use for custom compiled software
+first_path="$(ldconfig --verbose 2>/dev/null \
+    | grep --invert-match ^$'\t' \
+    | cut --delimiter=: --fields=1 \
+    | head --lines=1)"
+test "$first_path" == '/usr/local/lib' || true # Remove the || true in a follow-up PR. Needed for backwards compat.
+
 echo "Waiting pageserver become ready."
 while ! nc -z pageserver 6400; do
      sleep 1;