Life at MongoDB
Inside and outside MongoDB - who we are
Employee Benefits That Make a Difference at MongoDB
February 21, 2023
Culture
Women Leaders at MongoDB: Why Kanika Khurana is Leading with Transparency
March is Women’s History Month. Our women leaders series highlights MongoDB women who are leading teams and empowering others to own their career development and build together. Kanika Khurana, Technical Services Manager, shares how she leads with transparency, the importance of taking smart risks, and enabling team members to have the “courage to fall and rise again”. Tell me a bit about your team. I oversee the Cloud Technical Services team in India. Our team provides technical advice and support to MongoDB customers by acting as subject matter experts to clear blockers and recommend best practices, enabling customers to build next-generation applications. What characteristics make a good leader? I think that a good leader comes to know and value their employees' unique skills and abilities. They determine how to capitalize on their team’s strengths and tweak the environment to meet their larger goals. By taking the time to understand each employee, a great manager shows that they see their people for who they are. Have you faced any challenges as a woman growing your career in leadership? One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m an emotional thinker, which somehow hampers my decision-making. However, while I tend to be a more relationally-oriented decision maker, I’ve used this characteristic to help advance my career. Listening to and involving team members in essential conversations has enabled me to make more logical, reasonable, and healthier decisions. What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned throughout your career? The best leaders are transparent. They admit mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and make bad situations right. These “failures” aren’t signs of weakness but rather strengths. Mistakes are inevitable, and what we learn from them is what determines the course of our success. Trying to look perfect isn’t authentic, creates stress, and models unhealthy perfectionism. Through transparency, you build stronger relationships and an environment where a commitment to doing the right thing impacts the culture and the bottom line. The best thing you could do is to offer an Eden to your team, which allows them to grow and thrive, rather than creating an environment where the fear of making a mistake overtakes the courage to fall and rise again. What’s your advice to other women looking to grow their careers as leaders? I advise other women to be brave and take risks. Sticking to the safest option can be tempting, but you are unlikely to achieve growth and innovation if you’re not open to new steps or strategies. Of course, risks should be calculated, but carefully considering risks can progress your career. Be a little risky, take a leap, give it a try, speak up, and be kind but convicted in your effort to take a seat at the table. Join us to make an impact on your career and the future of technology. Find open roles on our careers site today.
Why MongoDB’s Partner Team is Focused like a Laser, Not a Flashlight
Four years ago, I wrote an article about how our Partner and Sales teams work together to ensure success. Since then, our Partner organization has grown five times in size and become even more of a competitive differentiator for MongoDB. As we continue to build lasting relationships with our partners and become even more strategic in how we leverage our partnerships, I’m reflecting on how far the Partner organization has come and where we’re headed. The Partner organization is the x-factor for MongoDB It starts with the customers, but more specifically, developers. Developers are creating some of the most innovative and modern applications with MongoDB, but our developer data platform is only one component of their tech stack. That’s why it’s essential to have an ecosystem of companies who help developers write or modernize their software faster. For MongoDB, this could be system integrators, cloud providers, ISVs who embed MongoDB into their products, technology partners who want to integrate with us, or resellers who enable us to sell MongoDB in new markets and regions. Most companies have a strategy for each and a team that manages these relationships, but there are a few things that make MongoDB’s Partner organization different. First, the people we hire. We look for individuals who have a sales-first mentality, are willing and able to generate pipeline, and can position the value of MongoDB. It’s extremely important for our Partner team to show ROI to our Sales teams, and I’d argue that if your Partner organization can’t do that, you might not need them. As part of the Partner team at MongoDB, you have the opportunity to master your sales skills and be rewarded for your success in finding new partnerships. One of our core MongoDB values is “Own What You Do” and it’s embodied every day on the Partner team. We demand excellence from ourselves. We take accountability for our actions and our success. We are empowered to make things happen. The second thing that sets MongoDB apart is that we manage partnerships like a laser, not a flashlight. We do not measure success by the number of partners we have. We prefer to deeply invest resources in a handful of alliances while we create an ecosystem funnel to drive the next wave of investments. We look for partnerships with organizations that our customers have told us they’d like us to work better with. Though we have over 1,000 partners, we put most of our horsepower into the top 50 based on this feedback. Lastly, the opportunity at MongoDB is enormous. If you are looking to work with a product that people love, and you believe there is an opportunity to be well-compensated for selling and building full solutions around a product, you’ll find that at MongoDB. Driving focus via the Partner Specialist teams At the beginning of this year, we created dedicated specialist teams for Cloud, System Integrator, ISV, VAR, and Tech partners. Customers have told us time and time again that they wanted us to become more intimate with their use cases and the associated ecosystem, and we listened. For example, we now have specialized teams for each cloud partner who know their products inside out and focus on strengthening the relationship by sourcing new opportunities for our sales force. This isn’t something you find in most Partner organizations, as it’s more common for teams to be generalists opposed to specialists. We began experimenting with specialization in 2021, and a highlight of this specialization is our partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). In the past, MongoDB and AWS were viewed as competitors rather than partners. In 2021, both sides realized that it’s better to work together and decided to dedicate individuals to build a partnership that has since resulted in an incredible number of co-sell wins. AWS has leaned into MongoDB and continues to position MongoDB Atlas as a preferred database for customers. This puts MongoDB as one of the top three data partners that AWS has globally, and AWS is now MongoDB’s largest partnership in the world . Scaling without diluting impact MongoDB’s Partner organization has quintupled in size since 2019. We have partners in almost every major location around the world and teams who provide regional coverage. With the ROI we’ve seen from specialization, we’ve invested in more specialists and therefore can provide more dedicated resources to each partner. MongoDB’s Partner organization is known as a place with a winning culture where people consistently deliver results. We’ve had many internal transfers from employees who joined MongoDB in Sales, Sales Development, or Marketing and decided to transition into a role on the Partner team. Similarly, our team is focused on providing opportunities for growth. The number of individuals who joined the Partner team as individual contributors and have since been promoted into Director and VP roles is extraordinary. For example, our VP of System Integrator Partner Specialists, Global Lead of Accenture Partner Specialists, RVP of Capgemini Partner Specialists, RVP of Cloud Programs, Global Lead of AWS Partner Specialists, and RVP of Azure Partner Specialists all began their careers as individual contributors here at MongoDB. As we grow our Partner organization, diversity of background, thought, and experiences will continue to be a key differentiator for us. We value different perspectives and view diversity as a way to better serve our customers. Diversity drives a culture of innovation and investing in inclusion helps us serve customers in all markets, giving us a competitive advantage. The future of MongoDB's Partner organization I’m very excited about our coming year. We continue to look for the next partnership to break records with. Whether it's Alibaba , IBM, Databricks , Carahsoft, Microsoft, or Google , working with partners to find new workloads is key to MongoB’s success. MongoDB plans to continue to invest directly in partners via MongoDB ventures as part of this strategy. We also take great pride in promoting folks into leadership positions and we expect even more of that in the year ahead. Our leaders and I live by one of John McMahon’s mottos: "Too many companies think culture is ping-pong, foosball, and beer taps. Helping people win is a culture. Teaching them how to win on their own is a culture. If people aren’t learning, earning, growing, and being promoted, they’re not staying around for the pool table.” This is why we hope you are interested in joining us. We have great products, specialized partnerships, and most importantly, a winning team of fantastic leaders. Want to be part of a team that takes ownership and makes their work matter? View our open roles today .
Women Leaders at MongoDB: Raising the Bar with May Petry
March is Women’s History Month. Our women leaders series highlights MongoDB women who are leading teams and empowering others to own their career development and build together. May Petry, Vice President of Digital and Growth Marketing, discusses the importance of defining your values, being authentic, and “getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Tell me a bit about your team. The Digital and Growth Marketing team is focused on finding the next best customer for MongoDB, helping them be wildly successful on Atlas, and accelerating their future growth on our platform. Our growth goals include driving awareness in net new audiences, generating revenue through our self-serve channel, delivering new digital experiences, and growing sales opportunities. What characteristics make a good leader? Good leaders have a clear set of personal values that guide their decisions and define their leadership style. They find joy in not just what their team does but how. A good leader is a ‘bar raiser’ and demonstrates mastery of all the company values. I value authenticity, integrity, empathy, accomplishment, and advocacy in leaders. What has your experience been like as a woman growing your career in leadership? There have been many occasions where I am the only woman and person of color in the room. Early in my career, this was intimidating and lonely, but finding allies helped. I also remember being told to “use my voice.” I was. I just wasn’t being heard. Focusing on how to speak so others listen is a skill to develop. The stakes just get higher as you advance your career. Tell us about some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned throughout your career. I’ll share two. First, I don’t have to be the best at what my team does. I have to be the best in helping my team do what they do best and excel at arranging their outputs, so it’s amplified, highly efficient, and ridiculously impactful. The second is that imposter syndrome doesn’t ever go away. It gets worse - use it to fuel your curiosity and empathy, drive collaboration, and help others grow. What’s your advice for building and developing a team? As a leader developing a team, you need to be a role model. Be authentic and vulnerable. Don’t just talk about learning and development - do something about it. Does everyone in your organization have an individual growth plan? Do they know what raising the bar looks like? Do they have regular conversations with their managers for feedback and recognition? That said, everyone is responsible for their own personal and professional growth. Take charge of your destiny by looking for mentors, coaches, and allies. What’s one piece of advice you have for women looking to grow their careers as leaders? Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Find a good circle of people to share, brainstorm, laugh, or cry with. We are our own worst critics, so be kind to yourself, stop apologizing, and go shine! Together, there’s nothing we can’t build. View current openings on our careers site.
Informing MongoDB Product Strategy Through Analytical Insights: Meet Natalya Furmanova
Natalya Furmanova joined MongoDB as a Product Manager in 2018. Since then, she’s had the opportunity to pursue her passions by making an internal transfer to our Data Analytics team where she produces quantitative insights that, simply put, help make our products better! Read on to learn more about how Natalya makes an impact in her role as a Data Analyst and what makes this team a great fit for someone who loves solving highly analytical problems. Jackie Denner: Thanks for taking the time to share a bit about your role and experience at MongoDB, Natalya. To start off, why did you decide to join MongoDB? Natalya Furmanova: At the time, MongoDB was transitioning from being a highly successful startup that created a popular open source technology to an established, publicly traded company. With my background in software engineering, I was fascinated at the prospect of making an impact on one of the core technology products that millions of developers use on a daily basis and that I myself was familiar with. The fact that the company produces a foundational technology that powers so many great applications was very attractive to me. I was looking forward to learning the intricacies of the distributed systems technology, the NoSQL paradigm, and the SaaS aspect of the product. JD: You were originally in Product Management and then moved to a Data Analyst role. What led you to make that transition? NF: I had joined MongoDB to help the Product team be more effective and data-driven by managing systems that support various product processes, with the main need rooted in the data systems (such as the data warehouse). As a Product Manager in Product Systems and Analytics, I found myself often performing analyses of the product usage patterns, establishing KPI systems, and democratizing data signals for the Product team’s use. I spearheaded several initiatives to centralize the scattered core technology usage signals in the data warehouse and led the analytical data platform technology transformation initiative for a while. After being promoted to Senior Product Manager, I realized that producing quantitative insights for the Product team was the most satisfying aspect of my role and decided I wanted to focus on it full time - there was so much to do! I had the opportunity to make an internal transfer and joined the Analytics and Business Operations team as a Staff Product Analyst while staying embedded with the Product and Engineering teams that I supported. I was de facto the first Product Analyst and have seen the team grow exponentially in the last two years. As a Staff-level team member, I have been supporting the team with my technology, data, and cross-product knowledge while performing planning activities and helping the team grow. JD: What is the culture like on the Data Analytics team? NF: First and foremost, I believe that every member of the Analytics team takes pride in providing high-quality quantitative insights.The level of talent inspires me to grow and learn. At the same time, the team puts emphasis on collaboration and knowledge sharing. Each analyst and data scientist works with a specific area of the business - be it product, technical support, or sales - which might lead to silos. In order to stay connected and collaborative, we form squads to tackle the problem from different perspectives, organize data hackathons which have resulted in several impactful projects, schedule weekly knowledge sharing sessions, and more. Curiosity and initiative are highly encouraged on our team - there are no wrong questions. JD: How does your team weave data and experimentation into the product roadmap? NF : The Product Analytics team works directly with the Product Managers, Lead Engineers, and Product Leadership team to set quantitative goals for the product’s adoption, test hypotheses by experimentation or causal analysis, find anomalies in the way our technology is used, provide supporting KPIs analysis for the state of the product updates, analyze the customer funnel in order to uncover the reasons for customer drop-off or churn, and more. We inject statistical rigor into the metrics and definition of KPIs and act as the thought partners to our Product and Engineering counterparts. Our quantitative findings power the product planning sessions, customer outreach, and marketing campaigns, and our projects range from defining KPIs to statistical modeling and feature engineering for machine learning problems. JD: How do you collaborate with other teams at MongoDB? NF: As Product Analysts, we are embedded in the processes of our respective Product and Engineering teams. For example, we review the scoping documentation in order to collaborate on defining the success metrics, meet regularly with our stakeholders and form squads for cross-team initiatives, and collaborate within the Product Analytics team and with other data teams to standardize and democratize the metrics that touch upon multiple products or features. JD: What are you most looking forward to over the next 6-12 months? NF: I am most looking forward to making an impact with several cross-team initiatives that are coming up, and contributing my expertise to solve some of the more challenging analytical problems that can help drive our business forward. JD: What makes working in analytics at MongoDB exciting and why should someone join the team? NF: To me, what’s most exciting is solving difficult analytical problems that require a combination of skills, from business acumen and analytical thinking to coding and math, and the ability to communicate the results to different stakeholder groups. There is so much work to do and so many exciting and highly technical product areas to support that anyone who joins can make an impact and be creative in their role. The last thing I’ll mention is how much I truly enjoy working with the people on my team. It’s an environment where you feel supported and know that everyone is working towards a common goal. Join a team that’s making it matter and building together. Find your next career opportunity at MongoDB .
Honoring Black History Month: How These MongoDB Employees Defied the Odds
February is Black History Month. It’s a time to reflect on and celebrate the struggles and triumphs of the black community and remember the importance of elevating black voices. Each year at MongoDB, we ask members of our employee resource group BEAM (Black Employees At MongoDB) if they’d like to share a personal story about their experiences and what this month means to them. This year, hear from Administrative Assistant Rita Henderson and Regional Director Daniel Hawthorne to learn more about their journeys into tech. Rita Henderson: Breaking Down Barriers and Owning Technology for Social Justice As we celebrate Black History Month, I am grateful for those who have paved the way for us to have a voice and fight for our rights. I am reminded of the struggles and achievements of black leaders throughout history. The fight for equal rights and justice is ongoing, and technology plays a crucial role in this fight. It is important to empower and uplift underrepresented communities in the tech industry to create a more inclusive and equitable future. I am a proud member of the Afro-Latinx community from North Philadelphia. Growing up in a neighborhood called Badlands, I witnessed first-hand the impact and struggles of poverty, high crime rates, and drugs. I am the youngest of six children, with parents who worked two jobs to make ends meet. Despite my parents' hard work and dedication to provide for their children, life was still a struggle for my family. At the age of 17, after completing my junior year of High School, I became a teen mom. Unfortunately, society tries to shame young mothers, especially teen moms of color. Many people reminded me that teen pregnancy is closely linked to single parenthood and that growing up in single-parent families remains the largest factor in increased poverty among children. Me (middle) and my sibling with our dad. Yes, I photoshopped myself in. As a teen mom, I was determined to break through the barriers society placed on me. With $200 in my pocket, I moved my daughter and I to western Pennsylvania and enrolled in Indiana University of Pennsylvania. There, I earned my bachelor's degree in Criminology and studied the school-to-prison pipeline in black communities. After the murder of the young unarmed black teenager, Mike Brown, and the Ferguson uprising, my sister and I collaborated with organizers in the Ferguson community to launch a free technology program to empower community organizers, educators, and youth with skill sets to create technology tools for social and economic justice. Graduating from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Pictured with my firstborn London Rae and my mom. I am influenced by the work of the Black Panther Party; specifically, the 10th Point of the party’s 10-Point Platform, “Community Control of Modern Technology”. For 45 years, the Black Panther Party included the right to learn, access, and control technology as a right. Huey said, "Knowing how to struggle is the essence of winning. Recognizing ills is fundamental; recognizing how to overcome ills is mandatory." That is why I believe it is critical for black and latinx people to understand the role technology plays in our society and the economy if we want to understand social justice and create tools for liberation. When I hear people talk about technology in black, latinx, and working-class communities, they often use it as a scare tactic. The fear of data and control and the feeling that technology is too advanced and that we lack the knowledge and tools to participate can be overwhelming. However, it is crucial for our community to claim our place in the tech world. We need to change our thinking and know there is a place for us, just like there is for anyone else. I am grateful for MongoDB's value "embrace the power of differences" and creating a platform where underrepresented communities can share their stories, bring their ideas to the forefront, and be heard in the tech industry. As we celebrate Black History Month, I am grateful for those who have paved the way for us to have a voice and fight for our rights. I am also thankful for the opportunities I have been given to make a difference in my community and empower others to do the same. With education and technology, we can continue breaking down barriers and striving for equality, justice, and liberation. In 2022, my partner and I welcomed our baby girl Lara Sky. Daniel Hawthorne: Building a Career as a Black Man in Tech Sales I was brought into the world with the odds against me, a black boy born in South Central Los Angeles in the 80s. However, I never felt that I was on my own. Throughout my entire life, God has choreographed my every step. At a very young age, my parents decided to move us to Austin, Texas where my grandparents were moving their church ministry. I was raised in Austin along with my two older brothers (Dante and Derrell), my younger sister (Amber), and my younger brother (Joseph). My siblings called me the “golden child” because I was a mama’s boy and kept to myself. The elementary and middle schools that I attended in Austin were fairly diverse, and I seldomly experienced racism. In the 7th grade, my family moved to a suburb of North Austin that wasn’t as diverse, and racist experiences became much more frequent. It was then that I began to acknowledge that being black brought different treatment. There were moments I embraced my blackness, but others where I was more focused on adapting myself into someone I thought those in my non-diverse environment wanted me to be. In middle school, the place to hang out was the Rec Center. I would run into kids from other schools, and we’d have the basketball gym to ourselves for a bit. Eventually, the older guys would take over the court, but I was good enough that I typically got to play with them. I remember observing them as they entered the gym. They’d be dressed in nice work clothes with Dell badges hanging from their shirts - the Rec Center was only five minutes from the Dell HQ - and that became an early image of what success looked like for me. In high school and college, I started my career in sales with a few small gigs. I enjoyed it because I was typically one of the top sellers no matter what I sold. I even sold women’s shoes at one point! After graduating with my M.B.A, I had no idea what my next move would be. But then, that image of success popped into my head. I focused my attention on getting a sales job at Dell. Despite not having any experience in tech, I knew I could excel. Who knew that 10 years after my days on the Rec Center courts, I would land my first job in tech. I joined the inside sales development team at Dell, and it was one of the most pivotal moments of my career. The job was intense. After a week of training, it was clear that I was the least technical in every room. But, I was determined to not let anyone outwork me. We were required to make over 100 outbound calls per day, but I quickly figured out how to achieve the true objective (10 scheduled virtual demonstrations in a week) in fewer calls. Through my efficiency, I helped form new standards and began to make a name for myself. Being in sales development wasn’t my end goal. I knew I wanted to get into outside sales, so I began building relationships with some of the Dell outside sellers I worked with. During a coaching session with one of my mentors, who was also a minority, he shared some guidance that I wasn’t ready for. He told me that if I truly wanted to be in outside sales, I needed to lose my earrings because professional men didn’t wear them. Even though he and I understood that earrings didn’t define me, his guidance was that being a person of color meant I was already playing from behind, and that I should exhaust all things within my control to create as level a playing field as I possibly could. This theme would continue throughout my career. Similar to when I was a kid in the non-diverse suburbs of Austin, as a black man in tech, I’ve felt heavy pressure to be a certain way to appease others. When I was first getting started, I hardly encountered sales folks that looked like me. I’d attend internal trainings and events where there might be one or two other black sellers out of 200+ people. In many ways, I felt that I was on an island and had to live through trial and error. I had a fear that being ‘too black’ would put me at an even greater disadvantage. I walked the line and was careful about what I said or did. I hardly engaged in extracurricular activities with co-workers, and when I did, I kept my guard up. So much of my energy and effort was exhausted into protecting my brand and trying to avoid negative stereotyping because of the color of my skin. I often think about how much more successful I could’ve been had I not felt obligated to focus on the things that never should’ve mattered. My wife and our two daughters at the apple orchards outside of St. Louis, Missouri. As I stated before, God has led my path in life. Numerous times when I was unsure of the next turn to make, He introduced someone to provide direction. I’m truly grateful for the people who may not have looked like me, but provided me with valuable coaching that helped guide my career in tech. I joined MongoDB to help customers with their data transformations, but I didn’t expect that I would go through a transformation myself. I’ve never felt more empowered to just be myself, and through that, I’ve reached new levels of individual and team accomplishments. I was a direct seller for my first two years with the company, and after receiving coaching from peers and leaders around me, I stepped into management a year ago. This wasn’t necessarily a milestone or goal that I had set out for myself, but I came to the realization that there was tremendous value in helping other sellers (and their families) achieve new levels of success. What better company to step into leadership than at MongoDB. Every company has employee resource groups nowadays, but the intentionality behind those groups at MongoDB is different. Our leadership team has leaned into those difficult, vulnerable discussions, sometimes simply to listen because they knew they didn’t have the answers. Even in those scenarios, they’d come up with relevant action that they could personally be responsible for. Despite the comfort zone I had created over the past 10+ years of watering down my blackness, our Sales team encourages individuality and has brought out the best version of me. It’s helped lift a giant weight off my back. I know I’m no longer starting from behind, and I don’t fear that folks are going to judge me. As I wrap-up my first year in sales leadership, I’ve noticed significant transformation in my personal development, and I’m excited that I get to continue taking on new challenges that will bring discomfort, but instill confidence that I can persevere. As we celebrate Black History Month, I think about the opportunity I have to expose other members of the black community to a profession in sales. Our experiences and our perspectives are highly valued and necessary in order to build a better tech-centric future. We’re passionate about cultivating a culture where people of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences feel valued and heard. Find your next career opportunity at MongoDB.
Turning Data Points Into Actionable Insights: Meet May Hoque
Imagine the interesting insights you could glean from combining multiple data sources with one tool that helps you easily analyze data over time. May Hoque is a senior software engineer on MongoDB’s Atlas Data Federation team where he helps create a distributed, federated query engine that can query across data stored in multiple sources. Keep reading to find out more about his experience joining MongoDB as an intern and new grad, then continuing to grow his career here over the last four and a half years. Jackie Denner: Thanks for sharing more about your experience today, May! To start, will you give an overview on your software engineering background and how you started working with MongoDB? May Hoque: I began exploring computer science in a high school class. The class was rudimentary but I had fun learning how to build programs. I chose computer science as my university major because it felt like a career I could grow with that both piqued my interest and offered long-term stability. I am currently a senior software engineer on MongoDB’s Atlas Data Federation team. I first joined MongoDB in 2017 as an intern, then returned after graduation to participate in the New Grad Program in 2018 which gave me an opportunity to rotate working between three different teams at MongoDB over our first six months. I originally joined the BI connector team, but then switched to the Atlas Data Federation team. JD: Tell me more about the Atlas Data Federation product. MH: Atlas Data Federation is a distributed, federated query engine at its core. This core enables users to query multiple data sources with a single query, from a single interface. Other MongoDB products, including Atlas Online Archive and Atlas Data Lake , use this core as a building block for their own functionality. The Atlas Data Lake product, for example, orders and organizes data to optimize for super fast queries even as the user's data sources grow in volume. The ability to perform complex queries, even across multiple data sources unlocks valuable benefits for a variety of use cases, for example maintaining the ability to easily query less frequently used data even after archiving it from pre-existing database clusters to less expensive locations. JD: What makes Atlas Data Federation unique? MH: We’re more than just a search function — we can also store your data and organize it in a way that makes it really fast to actually answer those questions. Its integration with Atlas and the larger MongoDB ecosystem widens the scope of the value users can get from their databases. It’s convenient and operationally simple to have all of your solutions to different challenges in the same place. MongoDB Atlas Data Lake allows developers to easily store and analyze large amounts of data in a cost-effective and scalable manner without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. JD: Talk me through some example use cases your team supports. MH: The real value in large data sets lies in understanding the trends and relationships between the data points. There are endless possibilities of how organizations can use Atlas Data Federation to draw insights to motivate strategic business decisions, from answering questions about specific events, to aggregating insights across a group of data points. Atlas Data Lake stores and organizes your data in a way that makes it really fast to answer questions related to your collection of data. Teams across an organization can benefit from more insight into data learnings. A marketing team may want to know what percentage of their users have spent more than a specific amount on a single item, including supporting data like what the item was and when they purchased it. An investor may want to know how much profit an organization made over a specific time period. A product team may want to look at historical sales data from past product launches. Users can answer all of these questions and more with a query on Atlas Data Federation. JD: What projects are you currently working on? MH: I am contributing to a bigger MongoDB initiative to add more sources of data. Adding this support to Atlas Data Federation and Data Lake will make our service available to new clients who want to use the product, but currently can’t. I’m also working on a high level systems design challenge to rearchitect our systems to scale and improve our service for our customers. JD: Let’s talk about what it’s like to work at MongoDB. What makes the team and product exciting to work on? MH: The Atlas Data Federation team is primarily focused on problems relating to complex distributed systems and database engineering . These challenges aren’t often easy to work on, but the careful and rigorous thinking needed to solve them is exciting and rewarding. Plus, the solution to the data lake problem is in demand, and the projects we work on are relevant to the industry. JD: What is the overall engineering culture like at MongoDB? What opportunities have inspired you to grow here? MH: My experience on the team has contributed to my growth as an engineer. I’ve noticed a strong culture of learning, mentorship and diversity both on the Atlas Data Federation team and the company at large. I appreciate that our team has a wide spectrum of experience levels, from new grads to engineers with decades of experience. The team is collaborative and takes pride in supporting each other. Whether I work on a project independently or with a group of engineers, I’m never working solo. I always have the support of the team and people to bounce ideas off of throughout a project, which creates opportunity for growth. JD: Why should someone join the Atlas Data Federation team? MH: If you're someone who really likes technical challenges or you just want to solve really cool problems, we have no shortage of them to work on. If you’re focused on growth, we have opportunities for all levels of experience. It is possible to grow from an intern to a manager on our team because of the mentorship and breadth of projects available to work on, which I’ve seen happen for some of my colleagues. Our team environment is built on empathy and collaboration. JD: What stands out to you about your overall experience working at MongoDB compared to your past experiences? MH: After a few years on the team, I'm still consistently growing my skill set and working on interesting, fun projects – two primary reasons I continue to work at MongoDB. The problems the Atlas Data Federation team works on provide me useful experience that I can apply to future projects and challenges. If you’re looking to collaborate with forward-thinking teams and interesting use cases, MongoDB is one of the best tech companies to work for. Interested in transforming your career at MongoDB? View open roles on our teams across the globe.
MongoDB Is A Best Place to Work in 2023, According to Our Employees on Glassdoor
MongoDB is pleased to announce that we are among the winners of the annual Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Awards, a list of the Best Places to Work in 2023 . Unlike other workplace awards, there is no self-nomination or application process, instead it’s entirely based on the feedback our employees have voluntarily and anonymously shared on Glassdoor. To determine the winners of the awards, Glassdoor evaluates company reviews shared by current and former employees over the past year. This year, we are proud to be recognized as a Best Place to Work among U.S. companies with more than 1,000 employees. A huge thank you goes out to all our employees who took the time to share their perspective on what it’s like to work here. We appreciate all the valuable feedback as it only helps us improve. Below are just a few words employees shared on Glassdoor that contributed toward the award and make us feel incredibly honored: Senior Staff Engineer, Sydney “I have been working on the Storage Engine for MongoDB for over ten years now. In my tenure at MongoDB I have taken on a lot of different roles and responsibilities and am now a senior individual contributor. Working with my colleagues to build the best storage engine in the world as well as carefully crafting a diverse, inclusive, pragmatic, engaged and curious engineering culture. During my time here I've been able to actively contribute to its success, and have clearly understood the vision and pathway to that success. The company is continually growing and evolving to meet changing needs - it's an exciting place to work full of opportunity and challenges. Enterprise Account Executive, Tel-Aviv “Amazing tech and some of the most smart & experienced you'll ever have a chance to work with. Feedback is a big part of the culture and is given in an actionable, clear way that is intended to make you better in your craft and your results.” Deal Strategy Manager, Dublin “MongoDB is very passionate about culture and ensuring everyone who walks in the door fits the existing culture. This is a culture where openness, inclusiveness and respect are really important. Management wants to try as hard as they can to maintain the small company feel while the company scales. I have worked in some large companies where the term 'family' is used a lot but here there is truth in saying that there is a family feel amongst my team and in my office. I can attest to this as within my first year I have had to deal with two quite serious changes in my personal life and the team has been so supportive and nothing has ever been an issue. The Senior Leadership here is the strongest I have ever seen in my career and I have no doubt this company will continue to grow over the next 5 years. The offices are incredible and the employee benefits are exceptional.” Director, Developer Relations, Austin “The C-Suite management team is amazing. Dev is an amazing CEO who has surrounded himself with brilliant people who know how to execute. The market opportunity is incredible. MongoDB is the hands down leader in the NoSQL space and the "great replacement" of RDBMS is just getting started. Outstanding growth position in a turbulent market. The entire team is focused on one mission. MongoDB has one goal. We will extend our lead in the NoSQL technology sector as we disrupt the global database technology market and replace the RDBMS. Everyone here marches to the beat of the same drum.” We’re hiring in 2023 and would love for you to join us. View our current career opportunities .
5 Ways MongoDB Puts Customer Experience First
Here at MongoDB, we obsess over customer experience. Dedication to the customer experience is part of our culture and the way we do business at MongoDB. Even if you haven’t heard the term customer experience (or CX) before, you probably have an intuitive sense of what it means. CX is the sum of all the interactions someone has with a company and can encompass anything from navigating a website, to dealing with customer service, to learning how to use a product. MongoDB is not alone in thinking the customer experience is a big deal. Consumer sentimen t (both B2B and B2C) indicates that companies who do not mold their practices around their customers’ desires do so at their peril. For example: 74% of customers are likely to buy a product based on favorable CX 66% of customers want companies to understand and address their needs And, a whopping 96% of customers say that CX is crucial for loyalty to a business At MongoDB, across the organization and at all levels, there is an expectation to do everything we can to understand our customers’ technical and business goals and to help our users achieve those objectives. Here are five key ways MongoDB makes sure that customer needs come first: Dedicated customer success function MongoDB’s hundreds-strong Customer Success team is tasked with making sure you get the most from your investment in our products. Access to Customer Success is free of charge and part of the purchase when you sign on with MongoDB. Think of Customer Success as an extension of your own team. We’re equally invested in the impact MongoDB has on your development cycles and business outcomes, which means our partnership does not end when you purchase from us. Rather, we see your investment with us as the beginning of a trusted partnership. You’re on a journey with MongoDB, and we’re here to guide and support you throughout. Goal-focused onboarding When you do business with MongoDB, the first part of your journey will be the onboarding process. We consider onboarding to be the most critical phase. Onboarding is our opportunity to set you up for long-term success with your MongoDB products, right from the very beginning. Certainly, we want you to get tangible value from our products, but we also want to connect with a shared purpose. Although we understand that every deployment is unique, we find that a clear onboarding workflow – from planning to launch – can help you swiftly and successfully get your applications live. In-depth success planning Before your developers get to work, it’s crucial to define what you want to build with our products and to determine the best way to get there. We will take the time to understand your desired business and technical outcomes, as well as how you measure success. When you sign on with MongoDB, our team will work closely with yours to develop a formal success plan. Through shared accountability and ownership of the process, our teams will use that plan as a roadmap as you build, launch, run — and ultimately optimize — your apps. Open office hours To maintain open communication with our MongoDB community, our Customer Success team hosts regularly scheduled Office Hour sessions. Whether you’re going live for the first time, expanding your current MongoDB platform, or just considering MongoDB, these open meetings will help you learn more about available MongoDB resources and give you the opportunity to talk directly with our Customer Success experts. Register now for MongoDB Customer Success office hours. Information at your fingertips MongoDB also makes it easy to get the information you need through our online Success Center , where you can access guides, samples, references, and resources for building applications on the MongoDB developer data platform. Here are other ways to connect with MongoDB: Visit the MongoDB Developer Center for tutorials, videos, and code examples. Chat with your peers on the MongoDB Developer Community . Access free courses and certification paths at MongoDB University . Bookmark the Customer Success Center to access the MongoDB customer success program. These elements of customer experience do not capture the full scope of how MongoDB helps our customers achieve tangible value from our solutions. But, they provide noteworthy examples of how MongoDB is doubling down on your experience. Our Customer Success team is excited to work with you, offering the tools and knowledge to help you build the next big thing for your organization. Learn more about Customer Success at MongoDB .
How a MongoDB Internship Helped Sahi Muthyala Grow Her Skills
Sahi Muthyala Sahi Muthyala is a rising senior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who is working as a Product Management intern at MongoDB’s New York City office. Sahi is currently interning with the Atlas Growth team, where she is not only helping the Product Management department but also learning about product research, product culture, and connection. In this interview, you’ll read about the learning experience and culture at MongoDB that has made this program the perfect internship for Sahi. Sezzy Rodriguez: Thanks so much for speaking with me today, Sahi. The first thing I’m curious about is how did you hear about MongoDB's internship? Sahi Muthyala: I first heard about MongoDB's internship through one of my college mentors during my freshman year at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She had just interned on the Node Driver team and had a lot of great things to say about the program. The amount of ownership, collaboration, and mentorship that she got during the course of her internship, and the way she spoke of MongoDB's culture really stood out to me. SR: That was such a great connection. Why, besides what you heard from your mentor, did you decide to intern at MongoDB? SM: I decided to intern at MongoDB for a few reasons: First, the impact that MongoDB has excites me. The beauty of our end users being developers is that our technology supports them in building applications that can impact billions of people. There is no limit to the impact that MongoDB can have, and that gets me really pumped about the problems that I'm going to be working on. Second, staying technical was top-of-mind, and I knew that I would definitely be able to do that at MongoDB, regardless of the team that I was going to be on because of how our end users are developers and how technical our products are. Third, I wanted to work at a mid-sized company, because I wanted to learn from what MongoDB does well but also have the room to contribute outside the scope of my projects/role and move quickly without too much process. SR: I’m so glad you noticed all of these things even before interning. Speaking of, tell me about the team you are interning on. SM: I am interning on the Atlas Growth team, which was formed in 2018 to focus on growing the self-serve usage of Atlas by helping users become successful to reach their full potential on Atlas. The team is very cross-functional in that product, design, research, marketing, analytics, and engineering are all working together to brainstorm the experiments that we can run and how to iterate based on results. We also work with other teams like Atlas Search and App Services (formerly Realm), which is exciting. The Atlas Growth team is currently split into three squads — Activation & Engagement, Monetization, and Product-led Acquisition. I am working on Activation & Engagement this summer to reduce the time for new users to experience value in the product and increase their engagement with the platform. My favorite parts of the team are how quantitative and qualitative we are, and how we think about the big picture. We do lots of A/B testing and iterating and are very data-driven, but also talk to customers to understand their needs and broader user/development journey. In terms of big-picture thinking, our team is thinking about how we can improve an existing product that has a lot of cross-over with other products and subproducts, so we have to zoom out and think more long-term. Even if we are running smaller A/B tests, they are often tied to validating a certain larger vision or figuring out how we should go about doing something. There is also no such thing as a failed experiment because we gain insight from every experiment that we run, which helps us inform future decisions. SR: What a great team to have. What is your favorite project you have worked on so far? SM: Definitely product research on local development. Initially, I was focused on product research for Atlas CLI, which we announced at MongoDB World, but the scope of the project expanded to local development. The focus of my user interviews leaned toward understanding users' app building and local development journey so we could understand how Atlas CLI can fit into that journey, and when and where we can surface it to users. Learning more about what different users are trying to accomplish and how they leverage our different tools was really insightful. Other major parts of this research project included a competitive analysis, user survey, and data analysis, which I used to gather findings, identify parallels, and come up with experiments that we can run. SR: That’s so interesting. What is the culture like at MongoDB? SM: The culture at MongoDB is incredible. People not only care deeply about what they are working on, but also want to know all about what you are working on and how they can support you. I care a lot about being somewhere where people are passionate about what we are building, and I see that at MongoDB. Furthermore, I love the product culture at MongoDB. We are user-obsessed. Developers will not start using our products just because of all of the cool things we say about what we have to offer. They care about whether our products and tools address their needs. It is pretty simple, but looking deeper, developers are challenging users: Not all developers are the same, and they tend to have pretty different use cases and even use different combinations of our products. These differences really push us to think about the whole developer journey and work cross-team to make sure that our users truly have the best experience. SR: What is your favorite part about interning at MongoDB? SM: The people. I am so glad that I have been around such incredible people who really care about what we do and who make sure that I am well-supported and have a fruitful experience. This internship has enabled me to learn so much from them and grow in ways that I did not even foresee before my internship started — from energy management to how to frame meetings/presentations with different audiences, and so much more. I am glad that I have found such a great fit in my final college internship. I feel like I have already grown so much as a young professional and have a strong idea of what I want to focus on next in my full-time role. SR: I’m so happy you’ve had a great internship experience at MongoDB. How has your team/mentors helped you as an intern this summer? SM: My mentor Richa has made me feel incredibly connected, valued, and supported as an intern. Even with her busy schedule, she made the time to meet with me for at least 30 minutes every day for the first few weeks of the internship to answer the many questions that I had, and she always encouraged me to explore whatever sparked my interest. Even though I have only been here for a few weeks, I have been pleasantly surprised to see how seriously my feedback is taken, whether it is around a product or process. The Atlas Growth team has made me feel just like another member of the team, and some PMs on other teams have taken it upon themselves to make me feel included and help me as much as they can. SR: Anything else you'd like to share? SM: Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have any questions about my experience. You can also follow me on Medium , where I write about product management among other topics.
How to Land Your Next Customer Success Role at MongoDB
Katie Palmer As director of customer success at MongoDB, I am thrilled to participate in growing our organization. Personally, I had two primary reasons for joining MongoDB. The first was the incredible market opportunity. The second reason was the opportunity to work alongside world-class go-to-market and customer success leaders. When I spoke with various MongoDB leaders during the interview process, I was impressed by their servant leadership approach, their genuine passion for what they’d been building at MongoDB, and their vision for customer success at MongoDB. The biggest highlight of working at MongoDB so far has been the deeply ingrained commitment to talent development in the culture here. At every level, there’s a feeling that no success is more important than helping employees build meaningful skills to achieve their full potential. One leader shared with me that the way they’ll measure their success at MongoDB is not by the number of quarters in which they hit their goals, or the revenue growth their work helped to achieve, but rather, how they were able to impact the pursuit of their employees’ goals and career aspirations. That approach has pushed me to new places both as a leader and an employee. Read on to learn more about our recruiting process for customer success and what we look for in candidates. Our approach to resumes The job-related people skills I look for when reviewing resumes include relationship building, communication, and business acumen. In terms of character-related skills, I look for signs of resourcefulness, grit, determination, and teamwork. MongoDB’s approach to hiring is similar to how we run our business. We have a data-driven, methodical approach, but we apply a human touch and creativity to supplement the science. Overall, I look for potential. I’m looking for individuals with a high ceiling, people who are going to up-level the team and make a massive impact on the business. Part of that is ensuring we bring in people with proven skills, but it also involves identifying those intangibles often seen in high achievers. Three things I look for when scanning a resume are: Relevant SaaS and/or customer success experience at an organization with a B2B sales motion A combination of technical skills and business acumen Career progression within a company The most important aspect of this role is the ability to connect business challenges and desired outcomes with the products and solutions that MongoDB offers. When I review a candidate's experience, I look for evidence of high aptitude and business skills combined with a passion for technology. In the absence of proven experience, your ability to articulate why you’re so excited to develop those skills will get me excited about having you join the team. The recruiting process Once a candidate has passed the recruiter screen, they move to the next step in the process and meet with the hiring manager. When meeting with the hiring manager, the goal is to engage in a conversational interview, where we will provide more insight into the position while discussing motivators, people skills, and experience managing customer relationships, as well as gauging technical interest and general knowledge of our products. If all goes well, we’ll schedule a call with one of our customer success team members. This step is a great opportunity to learn more about the day-to-day expectations of the role, our team culture, and how we work with our customers from someone actively performing a similar position with MongoDB. This interview will involve a case study, which is intended to be discussion based, to understand your approach to a customer use case. If the peer interview goes well, the candidate is invited to our “challenge” interview. In our case, this means that the candidate will prepare a mock onboarding meeting with a new MongoDB Atlas customer. We provide the materials, ranging from presentation slides to a basic script with expectations and platform demo instructions. At any stage throughout the process, we strongly encourage you to engage with our team and recruiters as a resource for additional information and to answer any questions you may have throughout your preparation. We’re here to help set you up for success. The three main things I look for during the challenge presentation are: A passion for technology. A strategic mindset. Are you able to balance the big picture objectives alongside the tactical outcomes throughout the conversation? Adaptability, coachability, and the ability to accept feedback. Finally, my top three tips for succeeding in the challenge are: Let your personality shine. Show us why customers will love working with you. Be curious. Think about great questions you can ask during the onboarding call and demo that will uncover details, help the customer adopt MongoDB, and make your call conversational. Take advantage of the prep call with your interviewer. Ask for feedback and apply it ahead of the challenge presentation. Hear from senior customer success manager Christina Chao on why she joined MongoDB's customer success team Christina Chao When looking for my next workplace, I knew I wanted to find a place where I could continually challenge myself and grow my career year over year. This requires a combined focus on customer success and professional development. Many companies say that they see customer success as the future, but few actually have programs or policies in place that support that notion. MongoDB, on the other hand, has put significant investment into its customer success organization. They have invested heavily in promoting customer success both within and outside of MongoDB, providing growth opportunities for customer success managers (CSMs) and ensuring that they feel heard. Most importantly, MongoDB has created a culture that genuinely encourages growth. This culture is embodied at all levels of the organization, and we are continually challenged to be intentional about our growth, step out of our comfort zone, make mistakes (and learn from them), and own what we do. Interested in joining our customer success team? We have open roles across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!
How the Atlas Search Team Empowers Engineers: Meet Nolan Lum
To take advantage of the benefits of having a modern database, MongoDB users need the ability to search and filter quickly against their dataset. Nolan Lum is a senior software engineer on MongoDB’s Atlas Search team where she helps create the fastest and easiest way to build relevance-based search capabilities directly into applications. I spoke with Nolan about what it is like to grow her career on the engineering team at MongoDB. Keep reading to learn about her experience and why the Atlas Search team offers great career opportunities for people with all sorts of backgrounds. Jackie Denner: Thanks for sharing more about your experience today, Nolan. To start, can you share some experiences that brought you to where you are now at MongoDB? Nolan Lum: My first experience with software engineering was in high school, and I continued to study computer science at UC Berkeley. After graduation, I worked at technology companies as a software engineer for over three and a half years. I have worked as a software engineer at MongoDB for almost two years now. I’m currently contributing to the Atlas Search team. JD: Tell me about Atlas Search. What is Atlas Search and how does that fit into the bigger picture at MongoDB? NL: Atlas Search is part of MongoDB Atlas. Atlas Search takes the data stored in MongoDB and indexes it for full-text search. It is a separate Java executable that currently runs alongside MongoDB. It replicates the data users store in MongoDB and makes it available for relevance-based, full-text search. JD: What kind of projects does the team work on? NL: The team is tackling search-related challenges from a variety of perspectives. From the product perspective, we are working on indexing data so that it is quickly accessible and scalable and making the experience of searching and using your database faster and better than using off-the-shelf solutions . From the engineering perspective, we’re solving challenges like how to handle data consistency or whether we should provide guarantees on what data you read back from us versus the database. JD: Tell me about an Atlas search project or feature that you've worked on. NL: I worked on a feature called Resumable Initial Sync that aimed to optimize a process in our replication subsystem. The original Initial Sync process would restart from scratch if another action caused it to pause, increasing the overall time to finish the sync. I updated the process to be resumable, so users can pick up where their initial sync left off after a sync interruption. This internal update helps our users have a better experience using MongoDB. It was a fun technical challenge because I had to think carefully about which asynchronous operations were happening in which order to ensure we accurately represented our place in the overall replication process. I'm proud that we were able to ship this feature update without creating any bugs or losing anyone’s data. Our team has good processes in place to ensure that we ship defect-free software as quickly as possible. JD: What do you like about working on the Atlas Search team? NL: This team appeals to me because there are interesting challenges for every type of engineer. We offer opportunities for traditional engineering, product challenges, hard technical problems, and more. We likely have a project that interests you. I also like that I work with team members from different roles in addition to other engineers, which promotes learning and growth through the work process. While working with other engineers is important, I also value the information I learn from collaborating with other types of team members. For example, during the past couple of weeks, our product managers hosted talks highlighting two important use cases for us to consider. The information they shared helped the engineering team better understand which features are the most valuable to spend our time building. JD: It sounds like a collaborative environment. NL: It is, and to a greater degree than I've experienced in the past. We value working together. One of our shared company values addresses the concept of “disagree and commit.” I’ve heard some people question if that actually works in practice, but here I think it is working well. I see my co-workers disagree sometimes, but after we work toward a consensus, the team rallies around the solution to move forward together. JD: What is the leadership on the Atlas Search team like? NL: The team is organized in a way that allows everybody, including the managers, to succeed. Instead of traditional engineering manager roles, we have team leads who are both people managers and engineers. This works for our team because the technical managers are in touch with the team’s day-to-day challenges beyond setting roadmaps and planning meetings. The philosophy behind what it means to be a manager focuses on empowering engineers at the company to succeed and giving them the space to do that. I think we do a good job at that. JD: What has your personal experience been like working on the Atlas Search team? NL: My experience on the team has been shaped by the wide range of experience levels of my colleagues. Our team’s spirit of mentorship has given me the opportunity to learn from other engineers who are senior to me or who come from different backgrounds, which has helped me grow my own skills. I’ve also been impressed with how equal and diverse the retention is at MongoDB, which in turn helps me feel comfortable being myself at work. Taking into consideration that there are far fewer women engineers in the industry, when one female engineer leaves a company, it makes a proportionally higher difference in team diversity than her male counterpart. I’ve noticed that MongoDB spends extra attention on supporting and retaining women engineers to help keep an authentic, inclusive culture at our organization. JD: What stood out to you about MongoDB while you were interviewing to join the organization? NL: When I was interviewing at MongoDB, I was looking to work at a company that offered me growth opportunities and mentorship, and a fair and thoughtful approach to measuring performance. I wanted to contribute to an engineering organization with a positive culture that valued more than just shipping as many products as possible. One of the reasons I decided to accept an offer at MongoDB was a conversation I had with our Executive VP of Engineering, Cailin Nelson . After I spoke with her, I felt like this was a company where I could flourish. It's inspiring to have women in leadership across the organization. JD: What was your experience during and after the hiring process at MongoDB? NL: At the time of our hiring conversation, I had almost four years of working experience, and I wanted to grow my career to recognize the increasingly advanced skills I had picked up. The conversations I had with MongoDB employees gave me the sense that the performance and team cultures were fair and that the potential for career advancement was available to me. After working here and observing other engineers here for two years, I am still impressed with how MongoDB values everyone’s performance equally and avoids the favoritism trap that so many tech company cultures fall into at scale. I was originally hired as a software engineer, and I have since been promoted to senior software engineer based on my performance. JD: Did you have search-focused engineering experience before working on the Atlas Search team? NL: Before joining this team, I didn't know a lot about search specifically. MongoDB’s engineering culture made ramping up a positive experience. Relevant experience is a plus, but if you’re interested in learning about search but don’t have specific experience in it, it’s not a dealbreaker against joining the team. I encourage people to apply even if their experience isn’t necessarily search-specific. Interested in transforming your career at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe!
Skunkworks 2022: A Week of Building for MongoDB Engineers
MongoDB’s 2022 internal Skunkworks hackathon wrapped up in July, and it was a bustling time of hacking, building, and developing. For MongoDB engineers, Skunkworks is a week of no meetings and no interviews—engineers can have fun and work alongside co-workers from different teams to build side projects, proof of concepts, or anything else imaginable. Many companies do one- or two-day hackathons, maybe once per year. We do one-week hackathons about every eight to ten months. Why? Hackathons are an important part of our engineering culture and embody our values of “Think Big, Go Far” and “Build Together.” We find that dedicating an entire week to the hackathon leads to significant innovation. With more than 115 projects submitted, this year’s Star Trek -themed event was one of the best and largest hackathons yet. Building from some of the newest MongoDB 6.0 features, let’s look at a few winning projects and the people behind them. Charts Slack Integration Team: James Wang, Ryan Nguyen, Andrew McMenemy, and Muthukrishnan Krishnamurthy We work on the Charts team and genuinely love our product; plus, it’s always fun taking complete ownership of it for a week. Reporting is a big ticket item for any data visualization tool. It’s something we’ve always had in the back of our minds, and users seem really keen on it. Variations of this request have been asked on our User Voice page since 2019 , along with a request for a Slack integration with Charts since 2020 . This feature is built on top of our Embedded Charts SDK . We updated the URL used to fetch an embedded Chart/Dashboard to take on a new query parameter for screen grabbing. This new URL will trigger an AWS Lambda instance we wrote for the project, which will make use of our embedding SDK to embed and take a screenshot of the chart. Skunkworks is our favorite time of the year. Learning software through projects is so much easier said than done, especially once you start a full-time career in software. MongoDB’s hackathon improves us as engineers, provides a break from the standard work week, and allows us to work on whatever we want, whether it’s a solo project or helping to make someone's dream a reality. It inspires us to always be looking for the next best idea, along with it being a great mental health week. MongoDB Carbon Footprint Calculation Team: Nellie Spektor, Maya Raman, Cathy Wang, Rohan Chhaya, and Tiffany Feng Our team was inspired by a previous Skunkworks hackathon project focused on sustainability within MongoDB Atlas. We decided to do a deep dive on carbon footprint measurement within MongoDB. We began by investigating the carbon efficiency of various parts of MongoDB, from drivers to Atlas. For testing Atlas, we first set up multiple clusters, each varying in either location, cluster size, and sharding status. Then, using an atlas-co2 calculator script that a MongoDB Developer Advocate made, we were able to test how much carbon each cluster was emitting. Finally, we were able to display our findings about different cluster sizes and cloud providers and their carbon footprints. While investigating drivers, we tested 100 insert/find/update/delete operations on 7 of our drivers and calculated the time taken and the wattage used, which was used to calculate carbon footprint and rank the drivers in terms of efficiency. The biggest takeaway for us was the sheer difference in carbon emissions that a simple choice can make. For example, using the Rust driver instead of Java uses 144 times less electricity and therefore emissions. Simply shifting your cluster from one cloud provider in the Virginia region to a different cloud provider in the Iowa region saves over 3kg of carbon a week. MongoDB is collaborating with a third-party vendor to get more robust carbon emission calculations, while tangentially understanding how we can provide a more efficient, sustainable product. Efforts like these help us to better refine our overall corporate emissions calculations. The Skunkworks hackathon is a great initiative that shows engineers how much MongoDB values creativity and personal growth. It's amazing that we are actually encouraged to put aside our regular work and try out anything we’d like. While some people work on personal development projects, other people take the opportunity to tackle some tech debt or explore new features without the constraints of the normal product development process. Furthermore, it allows us to integrate our outside interests into our work, which makes us even more passionate and motivated. Atlas Static Site Search Team: Ben Perlmutter, Joon Young Lee, Shibi Balamurugan, Marcus Eagan, and Nick Larew Our project was inspired by Algolia DocSearch . They’ve done a great job making it super easy to add search to a website. We wanted to make something similar with the MongoDB Atlas developer data platform, and we knew Atlas had the tools we needed to make this possible. It was just a question of writing some code to connect these services and creating a streamlined developer experience. We called the project Atlas Static Site Search, and it has the following distinct components: A website scraper that pulls site data and adds it to MongoDB built using Atlas Triggers. A search index built with Atlas Search using the site data. An Atlas Function that queries Atlas Search. A React component that you can add to a website that uses the Realm Web SDK to call the Atlas Function that performs search. A CLI that you can use to set up the whole backend (site scraper, search index, and search query function) with one command. The biggest challenge was getting all the different cloud services to work together well. Since it is a one week hackathon, we didn’t have time to write proper integration tests to validate that things were working as expected before deploying them. There was a lot of deploying code, praying it would work, it not working, and hotfixing. The Skunkworks hackathon is one of our favorite parts of working at MongoDB. Whether you are an intern or an experienced engineer, you’re given the freedom to work on a passion project or learn something new. It speaks to the respect that MongoDB leadership has for the engineering and product teams. A lot of great ideas and innovative products have come out of hackathons in the past. We’ll see what happens with Atlas Static Site Search! Simulating Common Customer Workloads Team: Xiaochen Wu, Kyle Suarez, and Nishith Atreya Our team recognized how replicating customer workloads has a myriad of benefits and can directly or indirectly help build a better testing environment, empower our support team, and identify potential improvement opportunities in our own product portfolio. We tried to replicate two different workloads—one transactional and one in-app analytical. After identifying these workloads, we brainstormed how to use MongoDB features and products to support them. Then, we identified important characteristics of each workload and began replicating them using available datasets. Following this, we monitored how each workload performed in the MongoDB platform and collected insights and recommendations for our internal teams. One of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out the important characteristics of each workload we were trying to replicate. For example, it was more difficult than expected to think of the most commonly used queries, search, and recommendation patterns that would appropriately represent the transactional customer workload. After the completion of our project, we created a recommendation for MongoDB to build a workload suite consisting of workloads that cover a variety of customer industries. This would allow our engineering organization to test major upgrades, perform product research, and identify improvement opportunities in our platform. $semanticSearch Aggregation Stage Team: Thomas Rueckstiess and Steve Liu At MongoDB Labs, we're always exploring how new technologies can be integrated with MongoDB. We read a paper that was published by a few researchers from Meta describing a novel architecture for semantic search and thought this could be a cool week-long project. We made four key changes: Built a web service that was the API interface to the model Introduced an aggregation pipeline called $semanticSearch that communicated with the API Deployed the web service on AWS Built a Star Trek themed front end using React The Skunkworks hackathon helps us explore the creativity of MongoDB engineers. Every project submitted looked well polished and innovative. We walked away inspired by the talent that's evident in the business. Hackathons provide a creative outlet for engineers away from the day-to-day tickets and helps build a meritocratic culture where any project can receive recognition and reward. Join us for the next hackathon: We’re actively hiring and looking for more talented, creative, and passionate engineers who want to build the next generation of MongoDB products and features!