diff --git a/guix-data-service/config.scm.in b/guix-data-service/config.scm.in
index 9941fca..22c399e 100644
--- a/guix-data-service/config.scm.in
+++ b/guix-data-service/config.scm.in
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
            (sqitch-plan . ,(let ((installed-plan
                                   "@prefix@/share/guix-data-service/sqitch/sqitch.plan")
                                  (dev-plan
-                                  (string-append (getcwd) "/sqitch/sqitch.plan")))
+                                  "@abs_top_builddir@/sqitch/sqitch.plan"))
                              (if (file-exists? installed-plan)
                                  installed-plan
                                  dev-plan)))
diff --git a/scripts/guix-data-service.in b/scripts/guix-data-service.in
index 33cf2b5..7eae735 100644
--- a/scripts/guix-data-service.in
+++ b/scripts/guix-data-service.in
@@ -141,7 +141,13 @@
            (list (%config 'sqitch)
                  "deploy"
                  "--db-client" (%config 'sqitch-psql)
-                 "--chdir" (dirname (dirname (%config 'sqitch-plan)))
+                 ;; For some reason, sqitch behaves differently when the
+                 ;; guix-data-service is packaged, and when it's not, so try
+                 ;; and hack around this here.
+                 "--chdir" (let ((base (dirname (%config 'sqitch-plan))))
+                             (if (string-prefix? "/gnu" (%config 'sqitch-plan))
+                                 base
+                                 (dirname base)))
                  "--plan-file" (%config 'sqitch-plan)
                  "--mode" "change"      ; this helps when migrations don't
                                         ; have the revert bit implemented