Life at MongoDB
Who MongoDB is as a company on the inside and outside
Away From the Keyboard: Ariel Hou, Staff Engineer
January 27, 2025
Culture
The Best Solutions Architects Work at MongoDB
I originally wrote this article after five years of working at MongoDB. Seven years later, the post is still as accurate as the day it was published. This article highlights the broad range of technology and sales skills required to be successful as a Solutions Architect (SA) at MongoDB, skills which led me to claim (and still claim) that you have to be the best of the best to be an SA here. However, MongoDB has changed, the technology landscape has changed, the Solution Architect role has changed, and I have changed along with them. This change has been pioneered by the SA organization. Before taking a look at how SAs pioneered some of MongoDB’s evolution, let’s take a look at some of the biggest changes at MongoDB since I wrote this article: MongoDB Atlas : Atlas has become the platform by which most organizations use MongoDB for production workloads. Unified database platform: MongoDB has transitioned from a database company to a full-featured unified database platform expanding to include full-text and vector search , stream processing , and time series data, thus enabling a single platform and query language to support all required data operations to build modern applications. Generative AI: MongoDB has become the preferred way many organizations build AI applications and use AI to rapidly modernize legacy applications and eliminate technical debt. In terms of technical knowledge, MongoDB SAs now need to have a detailed understanding of everything I listed in the original article, plus: A technical understanding of all three cloud providers, cloud security, and how to securely deploy applications in Atlas. SAs are strongly encouraged to obtain or expand their cloud certifications during their MongoDB tenure. An understanding of how to build applications using all the capabilities of the unified database platform beyond the core database. An understanding of how to build AI applications using LLMs and surrounding GenAI technologies. The MAAP reference architectures provide as much guidance to our customers as to new MongoDB SAs. It can be a lot, but it is also a great way to expand your technical expertise, grow your career, and ensure that your skills are current. One perspective I failed to capture in the original article is how the Solutions Consulting organization has been a centerpiece in driving the evolution of MongoDB. This is probably due to the unique position SAs play at the intersection of customer sales and delivery conversations, product marketing feedback, and technology. Consider MongoDB’s support for Generative AI, exemplified by the Modernization Factory and MAAP programs. The kernel of the idea that led to the Modernization Factory came from one of my colleagues. After some hard internal selling, the SA organization held a hackathon to brainstorm and conceptualize what type of application modernizations were possible with GenAI. (For those curious, the hackathon was set up as North America versus Europe with each region building 4 applications and was judged by a cross-functional team including many members of MongoDB’s executive staff, including our CEO, Dev Ittycheria. North America won) The power of the ideas generated by the hackathon led to the first Modernization Factory projects, and those successes led to the expansion of the Modernization Factory program. The genesis of the MAAP program followed a similar trajectory: internal hackathons expanding our understanding of how MongoDB could be leveraged as the platform for GenAI applications. It also produced a set of compelling customer demos that have been leveraged to expand customer understanding of the value of using MongoDB as the data platform for AI applications. This set of initial ideas and proof of concepts was then formalized by MongoDB’s product and partner teams into MAAP. The one thing that has always been constant at MongoDB is change—I’m certain that the Solutions Consulting organization will continue to play a role in pioneering it. The best solutions architects work at MongoDB Despite the bravado in the title, the purpose of this article is not to say that MongoDB Solutions Architects (SAs) are better than those working at other organizations. Rather, this article argues that the unique challenges encountered by SAs at MongoDB imply that successful MongoDB SAs are some of the best in the business. This assertion is derived from the unique challenges encountered by both supporting MongoDB customers and the MongoDB sales organization, and the breadth and depth of skills and knowledge required to be successful. To see why this is the case, let’s explore the role of an SA at MongoDB and the wide range of skills a Solutions Architect must master. A MongoDB SA (sometimes called a Sales Engineer in other organizations) is an engineer who supports the sales organization. The role is multi-faceted. A solutions architect must have: In-depth technical knowledge to both understand a customer’s technical challenges and to articulate how MongoDB addresses them Communication skills to present technical concepts in a clear and concise manner while tactfully dealing with skeptics and those more familiar with other technologies Sales skills to engage a prospect to learn their business challenges and the technical capabilities required to address those challenges Design and troubleshooting skills to assist prospects with designing solutions to complex problems and getting them back on track when things go wrong. The description above may make the MongoDB Solutions Architect role sound like other similar roles, but there are unique features of MongoDB (the product) and its competitive situation that make this role extremely challenging. We will explore this in the sections below. Technology While the strength of MongoDB and a major factor in its success has been the ease with which it can be adopted by developers, MongoDB is a complex product. Presenting MongoDB, answering questions, brainstorming designs, and helping resolve problems requires a wide range of knowledge, including: The MongoDB query language Application development with MongoDB’s drivers in 10+ different programming languages Single and multi-data center architectures for high availability Tuning MongoDB to achieve the required level of performance, read consistency, and write durability Scaling MongoDB to manage TBs of data and thousands of queries per second Estimating the size of a cluster (or the cloud deployment costs) required to meet application requirements Best practices for MongoDB schema design and how to design the best MongoDB schema for a given application MongoDB Enterprise operations tools: Ops Manager , Compass , etc. Atlas : MongoDB’s Database as a Service Offering MongoDB’s various connectors: BI/Atlas SQL , Spark , and Kafka . Migration strategies from RDBMS (and other databases) to MongoDB and Relational Migrator . This is a lot to know, and there is a lot of complexity. In addition to the core knowledge listed above, understanding the internal workings of MongoDB is essential when designing applications with high-performance and scalability requirements. Therefore, most Solutions Architects understand MongoDB’s internal architecture, such as how the WiredTiger storage engine works or how a MongoDB cluster manages connections. To make the SA role even more challenging, organizations often choose MongoDB after failing with some other technology. (Maybe their RDBMS didn’t scale, or it was too difficult to expand to handle new sources of data, or Hadoop processing did not meet real-time requirements, or some other NoSQL solution did not provide the required query expressibility and secondary indexes.) This means that MongoDB is often used for bleeding-edge applications that have never been built before. One of the roles of an SA is to understand the application requirements and help the application team come up with an initial design that will ensure their success 1 . It is probably obvious to experienced SAs, but SAs need to understand the capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of all competing and tangential solutions as well. MongoDB’s biggest competitors are Oracle, Amazon, and Microsoft – all of whom are constantly evolving their product offerings and marketing strategies. An SA must always keep their knowledge up to date as the market evolves. Communication Being a great technologist is not enough. An SA spends at least as much time communicating with customers as they do working with technology. Communication is sometimes in the form of a standard presentation or demo, but it most often entails detailed technical conversations about how MongoDB works or how MongoDB can be used to address a particular problem. Concise technical explanations that address customer questions using language tailored to their particular situation and frame of reference are the hallmark of an SA. MongoDB SAs have to be comfortable communicating with a wide range of people, not just development teams. They must engage operations, line of business stakeholders, architects, and technology executives in sales discovery conversations and present the technical aspects of MongoDB of most concern at the appropriate level of detail. For example, an SA must be able to provide technology executives with an intuitive feel for why their development teams will be significantly more productive with MongoDB or will be able to deploy a solution that can meet scalability and performance requirements unattainable with previous technology approaches. Similarly, an SA must learn an operations team’s unique challenges related to managing MongoDB and describe how tools like Ops Manager and Atlas address these requirements. Public speaking skills are also essential. Solutions Architects deliver webinars, speak at conferences, write blog posts, and lead discussions and MongoDB User Groups (MUGs). Sales An SA is a member of the Sales organization, and “selling” is a big part of the role. Selling involves many aspects. First, SAs assist the MongoDB Account Executives with discovery and qualification. They engage the customer in conversations to understand what their current problems are, their desired solution, the business benefits of the solution, the technical capabilities required to implement this solution, and how they'll measure success. After every customer conversation, SAs work with their Account Executives to refine their understanding of the customer’s situation and identify information that they want to gather at future meetings. Once the required technical capabilities are understood, it is the SA’s role to lead the sales activities that prove to the customer that (1) MongoDB meets all their required capabilities and (2) MongoDB meets these capabilities better than competing solutions. Most of the time, this is accomplished via customer conversations, presentations, demonstrations, and design brainstorming meetings. Finally, customers sometimes want to test or validate that MongoDB will meet their technical required capabilities. This is often in the form of a proof of concept (POC) that might test MongoDB performance or scalability, the ease of managing MongoDB clusters with its operations tools, or that MongoDB’s BI Connector and Atlas SQL provide seamless connectivity with industry-standard BI Tools, such as Tableau . SAs lead these POC efforts. They work with prospects to define and document the scope and success criteria and work with the prospect during the course of a POC to ensure success. Design and troubleshooting I alluded to this in the “Technology” section: helping prospects with creative problem solving distinguishes SAs at MongoDB. Organizations will choose MongoDB if they believe they understand how it will help them succeed. Imparting this understanding (a big part of the Solutions Architect’s role) is typically done by helping an organization through some of the more thorny design challenges and implementation decisions. Organizations will choose MongoDB when they understand the framework of a good MongoDB design for their use case and believe all their design requirements will be met. Designing a solution is not a yes-or-no question that can be researched in the documentation, but rather one that is found through deep technical knowledge, careful analysis, and trade-offs among many competing requirements. The best answer is often found through a collaborative process with the customer. SAs often lead these customer discussions, research solutions to the most challenging technical problems, and help craft the resulting design. Solutions Architects are also a source of internal innovation at MongoDB. Since Solutions Architects spend a significant amount of time speaking with customers, they are the first to realize when marketing or technical material is not resonating with customers or is simply difficult to understand. The pressure of short timelines and the desire to be successful often results in innovative messaging and slides that MongoDB’s Product Marketing organization often adopts. Similar innovation often occurs with respect to MongoDB feature requests and enhancements. SAs are continually working with customers to help them solve problems, and they quickly identify areas where MongoDB’s enhancements would provide significant value. The identification of these areas and specific recommendations from SAs on what product enhancements are required have played a big role in focusing the feature set of future MongoDB releases. Project management Lastly, SAs often support a number of Account Executives and work on several dozen sales opportunities per quarter. This means that SAs are working a large number of opportunities simultaneously and must be highly organized to ensure that they are prepared for each activity and complete every follow-up item in a timely manner. It is not possible for an SA manager to track or completely understand every sales opportunity, so SAs must be self-motivated and manage all their own activities. Summary Solutions Architecture at MongoDB is a challenging and rewarding role. The wide range of technical knowledge, plus sales and communication skills required to be successful, is common to SA roles. When you combine this with the need for SAs to design innovative solutions to complex (often previously unsolvable problems), the SAs have the set of skills and the track record of success that makes them the “best” in the business. If you want to join the best, check out the open roles within Solutions Consulting at MongoDB. About the author Jay Runkel is a Distinguished Solutions Architect at MongoDB, where he has spent the past 12 years helping organizations harness the power of modern data solutions. For the past two years, he has served as the North American Technical Lead for MongoDB’s Modernization Factory program, an initiative that leverages generative AI to accelerate the transformation of legacy applications to MongoDB. Prior to joining MongoDB, Jay was a Principal Technologist at MarkLogic, where he worked with financial services, healthcare, and media companies to build operational systems for analytics and custom publishing. His career spans a wide range of technology domains, including encryption asset management, automated underwriting, product information management, and CRM solutions. Jay holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Michigan. 1 My favorite part of the job is to get locked in a conference room and whiteboard for 4 hours with a development team to brainstorm the MongoDB solution/design for a particular use case. The most valuable end product of this session is not the design, but the development’s belief that they will be successful with MongoDB and that the development process will be easier than they expected.
How Neurodiversity Shines at MongoDB
At MongoDB, we continually work to foster a workplace culture where everyone can be their authentic selves. In fact, “Embrace the Power of Differences” is one of our core company values . Our employees’ diverse experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives help give MongoDB its competitive edge and lead to continuous innovation. April is Autism Awareness Month, and across industries, organizations are putting an increased focus on neurodiversity in the workplace. Luce and Ronan—members of our Config employee resource group—open up about their experiences as part of the neurodivergent community and how it shapes their work lives. Read on to learn more about the importance of neurodiversity awareness, building an inclusive culture, and ways we can all be better colleagues and advocates. Luce: Advocating for developers and neurodiversity Luce, a Senior Developer Advocate on MongoDB’s Developer Relations team, and someone with ADHD and high-functioning autism, says she’s always had a strong connection to technology. With a deep knowledge of Microsoft and C#, Luce brings both technical expertise and a wealth of personal experience to her role. But her journey to becoming an advocate for neurodiversity was shaped by challenges she faced early in her career. “I started out as a software developer, and in some ways, the logic of coding suited my neurodiversity,” said Luce. However, she struggled with breaking tasks into manageable steps and understanding the broader impact of a single change. This led to feelings of impostor syndrome, where she often saw herself as a “beginner” despite her technical skills. What kept Luce moving forward, though, was her passion for learning and her desire to support others. She began sharing her knowledge through blog posts and tutorials, which eventually led to her becoming a Microsoft MVP—a recognition she’s received seven times—and finding a career in developer advocacy. Luce’s advice to her colleagues? “Find out how your colleagues work best and leverage that. Corporate life can sometimes be too structured, and people should be allowed to work in ways that make them feel comfortable.” For someone with ADHD like Luce, this often looks like periods of hyperfocus and intense productivity, followed by periods of distraction that appear to be an “inconsistent” working cadence. Part of MongoDB’s hybrid working approach means that employees are owners of their success and trusted to work in a way that’s best for them—here you have the flexibility to decide how you get your work done in a setting that’s most productive for you. Ronan: A problem-solver at heart Ronan, a Senior Escalation Engineer on MongoDB’s Technical Services team, has spent his career untangling complex technical issues under pressure. As part of the escalation team, his role involves solving high-stakes, challenging problems that require deep focus and problem-solving skills. But as Ronan reflects, his journey to understanding his neurodivergence wasn’t straightforward. “For a long time, I didn’t realize what made me different,” said Ronan. “I loved working on complex technical issues, but at the same time, simple tasks would leave me stressed and anxious.” It wasn’t until his niece was diagnosed with autism that Ronan started to recognize similarities between her experience and his own. After pursuing a diagnosis in 2024, he finally understood what had been holding him back for so long. Ronan has learned that his own autism means he’s a highly detailed thinker who thrives when faced with a problem to solve. However, hyperfocus—while a strength—can be overwhelming, especially when switching between tasks. Ronan admits that large Zoom calls or constant Slack pings can overstimulate him, so he prefers written communication where he can process information at his own pace. One of Ronan’s biggest lessons learned is that neurodivergence is unique to each individual. “There’s no one-size-fits-all,” he said. “Some people may have sensory needs, communication preferences, or support needs that are very different from mine. It’s important to learn what neurodivergence means for the person in front of you.” The power of Config: A place for connection Both Luce and Ronan have found a supportive community in Config, MongoDB’s Employee Resource Group (ERG) for neurodiverse employees and allies. For Luce, being one of the leads of Config is incredibly fulfilling. She’s able to interact with members, understand how neurodiversity impacts them, and offer support in tangible ways. “I set up an always-open Zoom call where members can drop by for ‘ body doubling ,’ a technique that can help boost productivity,” Luce noted. “It’s so rewarding to see how simple actions can make a big difference for someone.” Ronan also values the sense of connection that Config has given him. “It’s helped me find a place where I can share my experiences and learn from others who understand,” he says. “The leadership team is fantastic at organizing events, and I feel like I can finally talk about the challenges that I face as a neurodivergent employee without fear of being judged.” Embracing neurodivergence: What we can all learn Luce and Ronan both emphasize the importance of understanding that neurodivergence isn’t the same for everyone. As Ronan puts it, “If you’ve met one neurodivergent person, you’ve met one neurodivergent person.” Whether it’s about communication styles, sensory needs, or work preferences, the key takeaway is this: when we listen, adapt, and support one another, we create an environment where everyone can thrive. Ronan’s advice to other neurodivergent employees? “There’s nothing wrong with you. You are not broken.” For Luce, the message is clear: “If you’re struggling, you don’t have to do it alone.” Both of them remind us that support is out there, whether it’s from friends, colleagues, employee resource groups, or the neurodiverse community at large. At MongoDB, we’re committed to celebrating neurodiversity and creating a workplace where everyone’s unique strengths are recognized. By continuing to build a culture of empathy, understanding, and collaboration, we’re ensuring that everyone—neurodivergent or not—has the opportunity to shine. Learn more about employee resource groups and careers at MongoDB when you join our talent community .
Reimagining Legacy Systems with AI: Why We're Building the Future
This article was adapted from an interview with Galileo’s Chain of Thought podcast. Watch the full episode on YouTube. At MongoDB, we talk a lot about what it means to be at an inflection point—a moment where you can either maintain the status quo or redefine what's possible. For my team and for software engineers around the world, that inflection point is here. Now. Large language models (LLMs), agents, and now model context protocol (MCP) are fundamentally changing not just how we work, but what is possible with technology. So we must adapt; we have to build differently, and be faster. At MongoDB, we're creating something unique. Something smarter. We’re embracing and exploring everything that AI can do for developers. And we’re inviting the next generation of engineers to join us in shaping it. The hidden cost of legacy systems If you've spent any time in enterprise engineering, you know the challenge many organizations face: decades-old systems that are critical to a company’s operations but are held together with duct tape and wishful thinking. The developers who built them have long since moved on. The documentation is missing, outdated, or was never written. The last update was six years ago; some of the dependencies are abandoned. Whether you call it “tech debt” or “care and feeding” or “maintenance”, it consumes a huge fraction of our time and engineering budget—without a clear path forward. This is the reality many companies face—whether they’re in finance , healthcare, or the public sector—they have no choice but to pour millions of dollars into just keeping these systems afloat. Or do they? At MongoDB, we're building a new kind of engineering capability—one that combines the latest advancements in generative AI with the principles of forward-deployed engineering to help modernize legacy systems at a speed and scale that feels impossible. What is forward-deployed AI engineering? Because it’s new, you may not have heard of this role before. It's a bridge between engineering, consulting, and product development. As an AI Forward Deployed Engineer, you won’t just sit behind the scenes writing code. You'll be embedded with our customers, working side by side with their teams to solve real-world modernization challenges. No theory, just hands-on engineering at the sharpest edge of AI innovation. Your goal? Write software with AI, write software for AI, at speeds you’ve never experienced. In some tasks, we have benchmarked AI as being more than eight hundred times faster than a human being… working in that environment is, I assure you, radically different. You’ll deliver immediate, meaningful impact—whether that’s untangling a million-line code base, modernizing outdated Java frameworks, or helping teams migrate from niche, unsupported languages to modern tech stacks. MongoDB + AI: Changing the game One of the most exciting parts of our work is how AI is fundamentally changing what's possible. In the past, a modernization project like this might take five years and dozens of engineers. Today, with the power of MongoDB and AI, that same work is done in a fraction of the time—sometimes in months, sometimes in weeks—with a much smaller, highly focused team. We use LLMs and other AI tools to do things like: Add missing documentation to legacy code Write unit tests where none existed Remove outdated frameworks, replacing them with others Analyze and map massive, messy code bases Move between programming languages, frameworks, platforms, ORMs, databases, and front-end technologies. Let me be clear—none of this is easy, or on autopilot. We augment great engineers with powerful tools so they can focus on the work that matters most, so they can think big, and go far . Combining human expertise with AI capability leads to outcomes no one thought possible. Why it matters Modernizing these systems isn’t just about efficiency or cost savings—it’s mission-critical. The legacy platforms power trading systems, healthcare infrastructure, and governmental services that support real people every day. In multiple countries around the world. Being able to show them a fully functional prototype in weeks, instead of years, is game-changing. It proves what's possible. It builds momentum. It allows them to rethink how they, too, can structure teams and processes in a world where technology moves faster than ever. Why join MongoDB? If you're an engineer who thrives on autonomy, problem-solving, and building real solutions with immediate impact—and you want to work with AI every day in novel and complex ways— this is your chance. We’re looking for folks from a variety of backgrounds—software development, consulting, product engineering, or technical architecture—who are passionate about learning and applying new technologies, skilled communicators who are excited to partner with customers, and who are comfortable operating in ambiguity. As part of our Application Modernization function, you will: Work directly with customers and stakeholders Rapidly build solutions that solve meaningful business challenges Operate at the intersection of engineering, product, and consulting Learn and apply cutting-edge AI, inventing both new methodologies and technologies Be part of a small, fast-moving, high-impact team You might even write a white paper or two. You’ll also be part of a culture that values leadership at every level. At MongoDB, we believe in making it matter —and this role is designed to make change, not just for our customers, but for the software industry as a whole. If you’ve ever wanted to be part of a startup within an enterprise, this is your opportunity. We're building a new way of working — one where experimentation, agility, and ownership are at the core. Help us build what’s next At MongoDB, we’re not just modernizing applications—we’re modernizing how software is made . If that excites you, if you want to shape the future of software development alongside a team of builders, thinkers, and innovators—we’d love to hear from you. Check out our open roles and join us in redefining what's possible.
Away From the Keyboard: Kyle Lai, Software Engineer 2
In “Away From the Keyboard,” MongoDB developers discuss what they do, how they keep a healthy work-life balance, and their advice for people seeking a more holistic approach to coding. In this article, Kyle Lai describes his role as a Software Engineer 2 at MongoDB; why he’d rather not be like the characters on the TV show, Severance; and how his commute helps set boundaries between his professional and personal lives. Q: What do you do at MongoDB? Kyle: Hi! I’m an engineer on Atlas Growth 1, where we run experiments on Atlas and coordinate closely with marketing, product, design, and analytics to improve the user experience. Atlas Growth 1 is part of the broader Atlas Growth engineering teams, where we own the experimentation platform and experiment software development kit, allowing other teams to run experiments as well! The engineers on Atlas Growth are very involved with the product side of our experiments. We help the analytics team collect metrics and decide if a given experiment was a win. Sometimes, seemingly obvious positive improvements can turn out to be detrimental to the user flow, so our experimentation process allows us to learn greatly about our users, whether the experiment wins or not. Q: What does work-life balance look like for you? Kyle: Work-life balance for me means that I won’t be worrying about responding to messages or needing to open my laptop after work hours. It also means that my teammates equally respect my work-life balance and do not expect me to work during non-work hours. Q: How do you ensure you set boundaries between work and personal life? Kyle: Generally, for me, it’s more difficult to set boundaries between work and personal life when I’m working from home, so I try to come into the office most days. My commute also provides me with time to wind down and signal that work is over for the day. In a way, the drive to and from the train station allows me to transition to getting into the mindset for work or to decompress at the end of the day. Q: Has work-life balance always been a priority for you, or did you develop it later in your career? Kyle: As someone who is early in my career, work-life balance is something that I’ve grown to appreciate and see as a priority in my life. It allows me to enjoy my personal life, and definitely contributes to a healthier me and a healthier team. Q: What benefits has this balance given you in your career? Kyle: Our team has a weekly Friday hangout meeting, where we have a different question posed to us each week. One of the questions was based on the TV show, Severance. Would we choose to be “severed” like the characters in the show? They undergo a procedure that separates their work and personal brains—their work brains have no awareness of their personal lives, and vice versa. As someone who hasn’t seen the show, but has heard about it from the rest of my team, I wouldn’t do it. Balancing my work and personal lives allows me to enjoy each side more. I’m motivated for the end of the week so I can enjoy the weekend, and I’m also excited to come to work with a fresh headspace on Mondays, since I am not overworking during non-work hours. Q: What advice would you give to someone seeking to find a better balance? Kyle: I’ll sometimes have the urge to continue working past work hours, as I’ll feel like I’m about to finish whatever task I’m working on very soon or think I can get even more done if I don’t stop working. That backfires pretty quickly. You have to realize you can be easily fatigued and are not able to give your best work if you constantly keep working. A proper work-life balance will allow you to have a fresh start and a clear mind each day. As for how to better separate work and personal life, I’d suggest changing notification settings on your phone for Slack, so that non-urgent work messages won’t tempt you to open your laptop. Another strategy would be to associate some event with a cutoff for checking work things, such as not reading messages once you’ve left the office or boarded the train. I’ve had teammates tell me they delete Slack from their phones when they’re on vacation, which is a good idea! Thank you to Kyle Lai for sharing these insights! And thanks to all of you for reading. For past articles in this series, check out our interviews with: Staff Engineer, Ariel Hou Senior AI Developer Advocate, Apoorva Joshi Developer Advocate, Anaiya Raisinghani Senior Partner Marketing Manager, Rafa Liou Staff Software Engineer, Everton Agner Interested in learning more about or connecting more with MongoDB? Join our MongoDB Community to meet other community members, hear about inspiring topics, and receive the latest MongoDB news and events. And let us know if you have any questions for our future guests when it comes to building a better work-life balance as developers. Tag us on social media: @/mongodb #LoveYourDevelopers #AwayFromTheKeyboard
Managing MongoDB's DevOps Tools & SOA Programs
David O’Dowd joined MongoDB in January 2022 as a Technical Program Manager, bringing over 20 years of software delivery experience. At MongoDB, he has experienced significant growth partnering with product and engineering executives to successfully deliver key initiatives across the MongoDB Atlas Engineering portfolio such as the DevOps Tools program and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) program. His efforts in establishing the long-term backend engineering vision for Atlas, mentoring team members, building new engineering teams, process improvement, Jira/Slack automation and managing cross-functional programs have propelled his career forward. David is passionate about fostering collaboration, driving process improvement, delivering impact, and sparking innovation, all to empower customers worldwide to build more efficiently through our Atlas Admin API and all our programmatic methods . Read on to learn more about the tools and programs led by David and his team. My path as a Technical Program Manager at MongoDB is a story of continuous learning, strategic innovation, and collaborative problem-solving. When I joined the API Experience and Kubernetes teams, partnering with our VP of Engineering for these areas, I discovered a unique ecosystem at the critical intersection of technology and customer experience, which was experiencing rapid growth. This growth would double the number of engineering teams and create multiple new Director of Engineering and Product Manager roles. These new teams were a continuing sign of our commitment to our customers who are developers accessing the MongoDB Atlas modern database programmatically, leveraging various DevOps Tools such as: Atlas Admin API Atlas Terraform Operator Atlas AWS CloudFormation AtlasCLI Atlas Kubernetes Operator Engineering programs with high-scale impact The DevOps Tools program is more than an engineering initiative— we're digital bridge builders . Its mission extends beyond writing code; we create seamless connections between MongoDB's products and our customers' diverse DevOps and Infrastructure as Code landscapes. We operate where technology meets human experience, ensuring our APIs are not just functional, but intuitive and transformative. We consistently analyze the market to meet our customers' programmatic interaction needs with Atlas. Additionally, we focus on documenting our products to enhance the developer experience. As a Technical Program Manager, I've focused on embedding DevOps Tools considerations deeper into the software development lifecycle across teams building the Atlas Control Pane. I've introduced innovative approaches like: Automation to alert API Experience teams earlier in the product planning process to allow for cross-functional discussions around versioning, breaking changes, DevOps tools requested by customers along with API first or API only techniques AI to identify dependencies in Product Descriptions and Scopes automatically Cross-team contracts to standardize collaboration between teams Creation of new teams to tackle new product areas like our Atlas Terraform Operator and Atlas Kubernetes Operator Jira Dashboards using the Jira API/Scriptrunner for executive metrics on team delivery and inter-team dependency management Increasing security, durability, availability, and performance through SOA Beyond the DevOps Tools Program, I’ve worked on the SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) program, driving MongoDB's long-term backend vision for our cloud backend platform. I focused on aligning over 150 projects between 30+ engineering teams towards the SOA macroservices vision. This effort aims to enhance feature delivery pace while improving customer-visible reliability. Partnering with the VP of Engineering, I have helped shape an architecture supporting sustainable scaling through the breakout of our monolith into macroservices to allow us to scale our workforce and Atlas customer base. The human side of technology What makes our work truly exciting is not just the technical complexity, but the human connections we create. By designing more intuitive APIs and integration tools, we're helping developers worldwide build more efficiently and creatively via programmatic methods. Whether it's organizing cross-functional team offsites in Dublin and Barcelona, or creating sophisticated Jira and Slack automations, my focus has always been on breaking down barriers between teams, departments, and organisations to deliver smoother collaborative processes for all. Why this matters In an era of rapid technological change, especially with AI transforming software development, our work in API Experience and DevOps Tools is more than ever at the forefront of enabling customers to programmatically access our products, such as Atlas Vector Search , to leverage the full potential of their data for AI-driven use cases. My journey at MongoDB has been about empowering teams, connecting technologies, connecting people, and helping our customers achieve more than they thought possible through our modern database . If you're passionate about bridging technology and customer experience, there's no more exciting place to be than MongoDB's API Experience and Kubernetes teams. Head to our careers site to apply for a role on David’s team and join our talent community to stay in the loop on all things #LifeAtMongoDB!
Away From the Keyboard: Everton Agner, Staff Software Engineer
We’re back with a new article in our ongoing “Away From the Keyboard” series, featuring in-depth interviews with people at MongoDB, discussing what they do, how they prioritize time away from their work, and approach to coding. Everton Agner, Staff Software Engineer at MongoDB, talked to us about why team support, transparent communication, and having small rituals are important for creating healthy work-life boundaries. Q: What do you do at MongoDB? Ev: I’m a Staff Software Engineer on the Atlas Foundational Services team. In practice, that means that I develop systems, tools, frameworks, processes and provide guidance within our systems architecture to other engineering teams so they can deliver value and make their customers happy! Q: What does work-life balance look like for you? Ev: My team is hybrid and distributed. I enjoy going to our office a couple of times every week (but don’t have to), and all of our team processes are built with remote friendliness in mind, which is very helpful. Occasionally, I go on call for a week, and make sure that my laptop is reachable in case something happens and it needs my attention. On my team, when there’s an on-call shift during a particular day or weekend that is really inconvenient, we are very supportive, and usually someone is able to swap rotations. Q: How do you ensure you set boundaries between work and personal life? Ev: It’s very easy to fall into the trap of never really disconnecting, thinking about or really just working all day when it’s just an open laptop away. As a rule of thumb, I tell myself that I only ever spend time outside of business hours doing anything work-related when I am not asked or expected to do so by anyone. When I do it, it’s because I want to and will likely have some fun! On the other hand, I’m very transparent when it comes to my personal life and responsibilities, as well as any work adjustments that are needed. Transparency is key, and I’m very lucky that all my managers at MongoDB have always been very accommodating. Q: Has work/life balance always been a priority for you, or did you develop it later in your career? Ev: It always was, but I struggled a bit during my first experience working from home in a hybrid model. Over time, I realized that the small rituals I’ve done during the days I commuted to the office, like getting ready in the morning and driving back home after work, were essential for me “flipping the switch” into on and off of work mode. Developing new rituals when I worked from home—like making sure I had breakfast, took care of my pets, or exercising after work—was essential for me to truly disconnect when I close my laptop. Otherwise I would struggle to enjoy my personal time during the evening or would think about work right after waking up in the morning. Q: What benefits has this balance given you in your career? Ev: I feel like both my personal and professional lives benefited from that. On the personal side, it’s really nice to know that my work schedule accommodates me not being a big morning person, and that it can take personal appointments that can overlap with business hours, like language classes (I’m learning Japanese currently!). On the professional side, sometimes I personally find it productive to spend some time during off-hours to research, write experimental code or documents, or just get ready for the next day while everything’s quiet. Q: What advice would you give to someone seeking to find a better balance? Ev: For me, work-life balance means being able to fully dedicate myself to my personal life without affecting success at my job and vice-versa. Most importantly, it is important to make sure that it’s sustainable and not detrimental to your health. On a more practical note, if you have access to work emails or communication channels on your phone, learning how to set up meaningful notifications is critical. If your phone notifies you of anything work-related outside of working hours, it needs to be important and actionable! Thank you to Everton Agner for sharing their insights! And thanks to all of you for reading. For past articles in this series, check out our interviews with: Senior AI Developer Advocate, Apoorva Joshi Developer Advocate Anaiya Raisinghani Senior Partner Marketing Manager Rafa Liou Interested in learning more about or connecting more with MongoDB? Join our MongoDB Community to meet other community members, hear about inspiring topics, and receive the latest MongoDB news and events. And let us know if you have any questions for our future guests when it comes to building a better work-life balance as developers. Tag us on social media: @/mongodb #LoveYourDevelopers #AwayFromTheKeyboard
Influencing Product Strategy at MongoDB with Garaudy Etienne
Garaudy Etienne joined MongoDB as a Product Manager in October of 2019. Since then, he’s experienced tremendous growth. Successful deliveries of MongoDB 4.4 features and MongoDB 5.0 sharding features helped fuel Garaudy’s career development, as did his work establishing a long-term sharding vision, mentoring others, and successfully managing interns. Now, as a Director of Product, he’s defining the strategic direction across multiple products and helping grow our product management organization and culture. Read on to learn more about Garaudy’s experience at MongoDB and his expanding team. A team with impact My team focuses on distributed systems within MongoDB's core database functions, also known as the database engine. Our team ensures the database is reliable and scalable for our most demanding customers. We ensure the product consistently performs as promised, especially at scale. MongoDB's dependability drives greater usage, which enhances our revenue and brand perception. The problems my team works on are vast and relatively undefined. These include revamping our Go-To-Market strategy for new and existing features, guiding the engineering team on architectural decisions driven by customer demands, identifying target markets, and assisting customers in challenging situations. MongoDB and AI We’re in the early stages of the AI boom. MongoDB’s document model is particularly well-suited for this era, as it excels in handling unstructured data, which makes up the majority of today’s information. As AI increasingly relies on diverse formats like text, images, and videos, our flexible schema enables efficient storage and retrieval of unstructured data, enabling applications to extract valuable insights. Our vector search capability enables fast, complex data matching and retrieval, making it ideal for AI-powered applications. This synergy between MongoDB’s document model plus Vector Search and the needs of AI-driven applications positions us as a powerful foundation for companies looking to enable AI into their workflows. The beauty of working in the core database is that it has to support every workload, including the new and expanding Vector Search applications. This means we need to ensure the database remains robust and scalable as AI demands evolve. Some examples are helping develop a more scalable architecture for Search or a new networking stack for Search. No matter what new capabilities MongoDB decides to deliver or the new markets we enter, everything must pass through the core database. This also allows you to meet lots of people and understand everything the company is doing instead of working in a silo. A rewarding career in product MongoDB is committed to career development, something I’ve experienced first-hand. The company has provided me with development opportunities through product management-specific training with Reforge, conferences, direct engagement with critical customers, and leadership training. As a product manager, I was offered mentorship and coaching with multiple experienced product leaders who provided guidance and support as I worked toward promotions. The company clearly communicates the expectations and requirements for advancement within the product management organization. Reflecting on my journey at MongoDB, I still remember the first two features I PM’d: Hedged Reads and Mirrored Reads. One of my first major highlights was presenting at the MongoDB 5.0 keynote to showcase resharding. Seeing genuine excitement from customers and internal teams about this new feature was incredibly fulfilling and reinforced its value. While the keynote was a public milestone, another personal highlight came when I finally visited one of my engineering teams in Barcelona after nearly two years of remote collaboration. This in-person time was invaluable and helped us bring the groundbreaking sharding changes for MongoDB 6.0 to the finish line. Most recently, defining the key strategic pillars for MongoDB 8.0 and allowing other product managers to take ownership of key initiatives has been more rewarding than I imagined. MongoDB’s engineering team is extremely talented, and collaborating with them always brings me tremendous joy. The most recent highlight of my career has been building a diverse product team and helping other product managers make a larger impact than they previously envisioned. Why MongoDB What keeps me at MongoDB is the opportunity to tackle significant challenges, make autonomous decisions, own multiple products, and take on greater leadership responsibilities. MongoDB also rewards and recognizes product managers who drive meaningful impact across the organization and its products. If these opportunities excite you, you'll thrive as part of MongoDB’s product management team! For my team, I’m committed to providing the right balance of guidance and autonomy. Your decisions will have a lasting impact at the executive and organizational levels, creating continuous opportunities to excel and deliver meaningful results. Plus, I always try to make the job fun. Head to our careers site to apply for a role on Garaudy’s team and join our talent community to stay in the loop on all things #LifeAtMongoDB!
Staff Engineering at MongoDB: Your Path to Making Broad Impact
Andrew Whitaker is a Senior Staff Engineer at MongoDB. His previous experience spans tiny startups to enormous organizations like AWS, where he held several different roles focusing on databases. Before joining MongoDB, he worked at a startup building optimized machine learning models in the cloud. Read on to learn more about why Andrew decided to join MongoDB in a senior-level engineering role and how his work is driving improvement within our engineering organization. Why MongoDB I have long been a fan of MongoDB’s products and services. MongoDB the database has always been a pleasure to work with – the system “brings joy” to quote a phrase. As a Python developer, I appreciate how the Python driver feels “Pythonic” in a completely natural way. The programmer interacts with the database using Python constructs: dictionaries, lists, and primitive types. By contrast, SQL databases force me to change my mental model, and the query language feels like an add-on that does not blend with the core language. As an engineer, I am always looking to expand my knowledge and grow my skills. The scope of challenges engineers face at MongoDB is what triggered my interest in the company. We obviously have people working on core databases and distributed systems. But, we also have teams dedicated to machine learning, streaming data, analytics, networking, developer tooling, drivers, and many more areas. It is very hard to get bored working at MongoDB. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the people. Overall, MongoDB’s engineering culture prioritizes intelligence, low ego, and an ability to get stuff done. CL/CI (Continuous Learning, Continuous Improvement) Working at MongoDB has provided me with opportunities for continued learning and growth. Though I do not program as much as I did earlier in my career, I have recently been exploring the Rust language. I’m excited by Rust because it avoids the tradeoffs between predictable performance and safety. My work in the search space has given me exposure to the fast moving world of AI: vector embeddings, RAG, etc. For various reasons, I think MongoDB is uniquely positioned to do well in this area. On top of this, I’m working on some initiatives that are not fully public. I can say that one focus area is improving the sharding experience for our customers. We believe MongoDB sharding is best-in-breed. Still, the process requires more manual configuration than we think is ideal: customers select the shard key, cluster type, shard count, etc. We give guidance here, but I think we can raise the bar in terms of offering a seamless experience with less “futz”. I’m also working with the search team. We believe there is a natural affinity between MongoDB’s document model and AI/ML workloads. We have some features in the works that extend this integration in new and interesting ways. I also spend a fair bit of time driving quality improvements across our suite of products. Our CTO Jim Scharf frequently refers to our “ big 4 ” goals: security, durability, availability, and performance. These goals are more important than any feature we build. I’ve been working across the company to help teams define their availability SLO/SLAs. It turns out that measuring availability is a subtle topic. For example, a naive approach of counting the percentage of failed requests can underestimate downtime because customers make fewer requests when a service is unavailable. So, the first step is to clarify the definition of availability. Finally, as a lapsed academic (in a distant life, I was a graduate student at the University of Washington Department of Computer Science and Engineering), I’m always interested in finding ways to bridge theory and practice. I’ve been collaborating with some folks in our research team to drive improvements to our replication protocols. There are theoretical results that suggest it is impossible to simultaneously achieve low latency and strong consistency (“linearizability” in the technical jargon). However, we believe there are intermediate points in the consistency/latency spectrum that have not been fully explored. This work hasn't been made into a product yet, but stay tuned. Flexible working MongoDB is a hybrid company. Like many of our engineers, I work outside the company headquarters in New York City (I live in Seattle). I appreciate MongoDB’s approach to hybrid working and that company leadership, starting with Dev , cares about the well-being of their employees. It seems there are companies that don’t seem to trust their employees to make decisions, such as which days to come into the office, so I’m thankful for the autonomy I receive at MongoDB to work in a way that’s best for me. Remote work has its challenges, but I would say that the benefit for my work/life balance has been transformative. Final thoughts I have found MongoDB engineers demonstrate a strong mix of technical depth, pragmatism, and empathy. I have yet to find the “smart jerk” prototype that seems to exist throughout the tech industry. Overall, I have found MongoDB is open to change and growth at both the team level and the individual level. There is a willingness to evolve and improve that aligns with the company’s values and leadership principles and enables the success of our technology and people. Find out more about MongoDB culture and career opportunities by joining our talent community .
Away From the Keyboard: Rafa Liou, Senior Partner Marketing Manager
Welcome to the latest article in our “Away From the Keyboard” series, which features interviews with people at MongoDB, discussing what they do, how they prioritize time away from their work, and their advice for others looking to create a more holistic approach to coding. Rafa Liou, Senior Partner Marketing Manager at MongoDB, was gracious enough to tell us why he's not ashamed to advocate strongly for a healthy work-life balance and how his past career in the wild world of advertising helped him first recognize the need to do so. Q: What do you do at MongoDB? RAFA: I’m a Marketing Manager focused on MongoDB’s AI partner ecosystem . I help promote our partnerships with companies such as Anthropic, Cohere, LangChain, Together AI, and many others. I work to drive mutual awareness, credibility, and product adoption in the gen AI space via marketing programs. Basically telling the world why we’re better together. It’s a cool job where I’m able to wear many hats and interact with lots of different teams internally and externally. Q: What does work-life balance look like for you? RAFA: Work-life balance is really important to me. It’s actually one of the things I value the most in a job. I know some people advise against this but anytime I’m interviewing with a company I ask about it because it definitely impacts my mental health, how I spend my time outside of work, and my ability to do the things I love. I’m very fortunate to work for a company that understands that, and trusts me to do my job and, at the same time, be able to step out for a walk, a workout, not miss a dinner reservation with my husband, or whatever it is. It makes a lot of difference in both my productivity and happiness. After I log off, you can find me taking a HIIT class, exploring the restaurant scene in LA, or biking at the beach. It’s so good to be able to do all of that stress-free! Q: How do you ensure you set boundaries between work and personal life? RAFA: I usually joke that if you do everything you’re tasked with at the pace you’d like things to get done, you will never stop working. It is really important to prioritize them based on value, urgency, and feasibility. By assessing your pipeline more critically, you will be able to distill what needs to be done right now and also be at peace with the things that will be handled down the road, making it easier to disconnect when you’re done for the day. It’s also important to set expectations and boundaries with your manager and teams so you can fully enjoy life after work without worrying about that Slack message when you’re at the movies. Q: Has work/life balance always been a priority for you, or did you develop it later in your career? RAFA: Before tech, I worked in advertising, which is a very fast-paced industry with the craziest deadlines. For some time in my career, working relentlessly was not only required, but it was also rewarded by agency culture. When you’re young, nights in the office brainstorming over pizza with friends may sound fun. But it starts to wear you out pretty quickly, especially when you don’t have the time, energy, or even the mental state to enjoy your personal life after long hours. As I matured and climbed a few steps in my career, I felt the urge and empowerment to set some boundaries to protect myself. Now, it’s a non-negotiable factor for me. Q: What benefits has this balance given you in your career? RAFA: By constantly exercising prioritization, I’ve become a more efficient professional. When you focus on what really matters, you are also able to execute at higher quality, without distractions or the feeling of getting overwhelmed. Of course, with prioritization comes a lot of trade-offs and discussions with stakeholders on what should be prioritized today versus tomorrow. So, I think I’ve also gotten better at negotiation and conflict resolution (things I’ve always struggled with). Last but not least: having consistent downtime to unwind makes me more creative and energized to come up with new ideas and take on new projects. Q: What advice would you give to someone seeking to find a better balance? RAFA: First and foremost: don’t be ashamed of wanting a better work-life balance. I often find people living and breathing work just because they don’t want to be seen as lazy or uncommitted. Once you understand that a better work-life balance will actually make you a better professional—more intentional, efficient, and even strategic (as you will spend energy to solve what creates more value in a timely manner)—it will be easier to have this mindset, communicate it to others, and live by it. Something more practical would be to start a list of all the things you have to do, acknowledge you can’t finish them all by the end of the day (or week, or month), and ask yourself: Do they all carry the same importance? How can I prioritize them? What would happen if I work on X now instead of Y? I would experiment with this approach and check how you feel and how it impacts your day-to-day life. You might be surprised by the result. Making time for personal life events, hobbies, and meet-ups with family and friends will also help you have something to look forward to after closing your laptop. This is all easier said than done but I guarantee that once this becomes part of your core values and you find the balance that works for you, it is totally worth it! Thank you to Rafa Liou for sharing his insights! And thanks to all of you for reading. For past articles in this series, check out our interviews with: Senior AI Developer Advocate, Apoorva Joshi Developer Advocate Anaiya Raisinghani Interested in learning more about or connecting more with MongoDB? Join our MongoDB Community to meet other community members, hear about inspiring topics, and receive the latest MongoDB news and events. And let us know if you have any questions for our future guests when it comes to building a better work-life balance as developers. Tag us on social media: @/mongodb
Driving Neurodiversity Awareness and Education at MongoDB
Roughly 20% of the US population is neurodiverse, which means that you likely work with a colleague who learns and navigates the workplace (and the world) differently than you do. Which is a good thing! Studies have shown that hiring neurodiverse individuals benefits workplaces , with Deloitte noting that organizations “can gain a competitive edge from increased diversity in skills, ways of thinking, and approaches to problem-solving.” Config at MongoDB —which Cian and I are the global leaders of—recognizes the prevalence, importance, and power of neurodiversity in the workplace. Config’s mission is to educate both our members and the wider employee population at MongoDB about neurodiversity in the workplace, and through education to empower them to embrace—and champion—neurodiversity. Since it was founded in April 2023, Config’s membership has grown by over 150%, and it now has members in New York, Dublin, Paris, Gurugram, and Sydney. In fact, more than 200 people who span a range of MongoDB teams—from Engineering and Product, to the People team, to Marketing—take part in Config. We like to say that no one succeeds until all of us succeed. And that no one belongs until all of us belong. As managers, culture leaders, and as people, it's our responsibility to do whatever we can to make that true. Invisible differences like neurodiversity are hard to spot, but they enrich our work and our lives. Config.MDB plays an important role in helping us achieve this ambition. Making an impact on the MongoDB community Over the last year and a half, Config has held over fifteen events globally—with almost 1,000 employees in attendance. Config has held educational events for both the group’s members and the wider MongoDB audience on neurodiversity-related topics like autism awareness and ADHD awareness, along with events tailored to allies and members who identify as neurodivergent or who are part of a neurodivergent family. Config has also held training sessions for MongoDB people managers that provide them knowledge and tools to better manage neurodiverse team members. Ger Hartnett, an Engineering Lead at MongoDB said the training “gave me a much better understanding and appreciation for neurodiversity. This course was truly eye-opening for me. I learned practical ways to be more inclusive and supportive, both at work and in everyday life.” The group also holds quarterly virtual meetings to share the latest updates, personal experiences, and practical tips for members, focusing on career development, benefit entitlements, and events happening within MongoDB. Outside of events and training sessions, Config has had a broader business impact on the company, with some Config leads partnering with the employee inclusion and recruiting teams to put together an interview accommodation program. This program supports candidates who are neurodiverse or have a disability by allowing them to apply for special requests to make their interview experience more inclusive and enjoyable. Making a difference for individual members Config’s focus on educational and training events has had a dramatic and direct impact on members. The group is a safe space for neurodiverse or disabled people to share their experiences and seek advice on various issues. Cian is one of Config’s founding members, and had this to say about his personal experience: I was diagnosed with dyslexia in college and wanted to start a group like Config after speaking with other employees who were neurodiverse. We agreed that there was a need for a group like this at MongoDB. After the group was formed, I attended several events that focused on ADHD and saw a lot of similarities between traits and experiences of those with ADHD and myself. After attending these events, struggles that I had and that I thought were personality traits could be a sign of ADHD, I turned to some of our members for guidance on how to seek a diagnosis. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with ADHD by a medical professional. I have noticed an improvement in my quality of life, and thanks to Config, I have a lot of valuable tips and resources to help me in my day-to-day. Had it not been for Config and these events I would still be none the wiser. Config has also made an impact on employees who are parents of neurodivergent children, like Sarah Lin , a senior information/content architect and Config member: I joined Config to be part of the change I want to see in the world—to help make the inclusive and supportive workplace I'd want my autistic daughter to experience. I certainly hope I'm contributing because membership has benefitted me personally. I've learned more about different types of neurodivergence and ways to support my colleagues. From our employee resource group events, I've learned more about autism and the lives of autistic adults so that I can be a better support for my daughter as we look toward her adulthood. The best part has been conversations with other parents and seeing myself reflected in their struggles, persistence, and achievements. Looking ahead As Config continues to expand its footprint within MongoDB, the group plans to introduce advanced educational programming to raise awareness for neurodiversity in the workplace. It also plans to hold workshops to foster professional development and executive functioning. Config also hopes to grow its global membership to provide community outreach at scale for nonprofit organizations that specifically service neurodiverse individuals. Ultimately, Config’s aim is to create the best environment for teams at MongoDB. Our view of success is not only the “what” but also the “how.” Being sustainable, encouraging growth through learning, and accomplishing goals as a team are all meaningful to us. And we believe strongly in the power of allyship; we want MongoDB to be a place where amazing people feel supported and are given the opportunity to do their best. After all, many of us are already close to neurodivergent individuals. One of Config’s Executive Sponsors, Mick Graham, has a daughter who is neurodivergent—which he says gives him extra inspiration to support Config now and in the future. Overall, being part of Config has raised our understanding of how neurodivergent people navigate the world. And the group—and the inspirations and experiences members have shared—contribute to making MongoDB a place that great people want to be. Interested in learning more about employee resource groups at MongoDB? Join our talent community to receive the latest MongoDB culture highlights.
Away From the Keyboard: Apoorva Joshi, MongoDB Senior AI Developer Advocate
Welcome to our article series focused on developers and what they do when they’re not building incredible things with code and data. “Away From the Keyboard” features interviews with developers at MongoDB, discussing what they do, how they establish a healthy work-life balance, and their advice for others looking to create a more holistic approach to coding. In this article, Apoorva Joshi shares her day-to-day responsibilities as a Senior AI Developer Advocate at MongoDB; what a flexible approach to her job and life looks like; and how her work calendar helps prioritize overall balance. Q: What do you do at MongoDB? Apoorva: My job is to help developers successfully build AI applications using MongoDB. I do this through written technical content, hands-on workshops, and design whiteboarding sessions. Q: What does work-life balance look like for you? Apoorva: I love remote work. It allows me to have a flexible approach towards work and life where I can accommodate life things, like dental appointments, walks, or lunches in the park during my work day—as long as work gets done. Q: Was that balance always a priority for you or did you develop it later in your career? Apoorva: Making work-life balance a priority has been a fairly recent development. During my first few years on the job, I would work long hours, partly because I felt like I needed to prove myself and also because I hadn’t prioritized finding activities I enjoyed outside of school or work up until then. The first lockdown during the pandemic put a lot of things into perspective. With work and life happening in the same place, I felt the need for boundaries. Having nowhere to go encouraged me to try out new hobbies, such as solving jigsaw puzzles; as well as reconnecting with old favorites, like reading and painting. Q: What benefits has this balance given you? Apoorva: Doing activities away from the keyboard makes me more productive at work. A flexible working schedule also creates a stress-free environment and allows me to bring my 100% to work. This balance helps me make time for family and friends, exercise, chores, and hobbies. Overall, having a healthy work-life balance helps me lead a fulfilling life that I am proud of. Q: What advice would you give to a developer seeking to find a better balance? Apoorva: The first step to finding a balance between work and life is to recognize that boundaries are healthy. I have found that putting everyday things, such as lunch breaks and walks on my work calendar is a good way to remind myself to take that break or close my laptop, while also communicating those boundaries with my colleagues. If you are having trouble doing this on your own, ask a family member, partner, or friend to remind you! Thank you to Apoorva Joshi for sharing her insights! And thanks to all of you for reading. Look for more in our new series. Interested in learning more about or connecting more with MongoDB? Join our MongoDB Community to meet other community members, hear about inspiring topics, and receive the latest MongoDB news and events. And let us know if you have any questions for our future guests when it comes to building a better work-life balance as developers. Tag us on social media: @/mongodb
Away From the Keyboard: Anaiya Raisinghani, MongoDB Developer Advocate
Welcome to our new article series focused on developers and what they do when they’re not building incredible things with code and data. “Away From the Keyboard” features interviews with developers at MongoDB, discussing what they do, how they establish a healthy work-life balance, and their advice for others looking to create a more holistic approach to coding. In our first article, Anaiya Raisinghani shares her day-to-day responsibilities as a Developer Advocate at MongoDB; how she uses nonrefundable workout classes and dinner reservations to help her step away from work; and her hack for making sure that when she logs off for the day, she stays logged off. Q: What do you do at MongoDB? Anaiya: I’m a developer advocate here at MongoDB on the Technical Content team! This means I get to build super fun MongoDB tutorials for the entire developer community. I’m lucky where each day is different. If I’m researching a platform to build a tutorial, it can mean hours of research and reading up on documentation, whereas if I’m filming a YouTube video it means lots of time recording and editing. Q: What does work-life balance look like for you? Anaiya: A bad habit of mine is to get really caught up in a piece of content I’m creating and refuse to leave a certain spot until I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to do that day. Because of this—and because I work mainly from home—if I can anticipate that I’m going to get caught up in a project, I create plans that force me to leave my desk. Some examples of these are non-refundable workout classes, drinks with friends after work (I hate being a flake), or even dinner reservations that charge you if you cancel less than 24 hours in advance. My biggest gripe is paying for something that I didn’t get anything out of. If I’m paying for a single pilates class, I will make sure I’m there trying my best on the reformer. So this has been a fantastic motivator. Being 25 and living in NYC means that my weekends are always booked, so I’m always out and about, and this allows me to not think about work on my time off. I’m also lucky enough to have a great manager and team that keep very great work-life boundaries, so I never feel guilty practicing those boundaries myself. Q: Was that balance always a priority for you or did you develop it later in your career? Anaiya: This balance was definitely something I had to develop and actively work on. I’ve always been an anxious over-achiever, and when coming into my first corporate job I thought staying overtime would be expected. We’ve all heard the phrase: “Be the first one in and the last to leave.” My manager actually used to actively tell me to log off when I first started because he would notice that my Slack was active past work hours (shoutout to Nic!). Having him and my team as a great example helped me understand that there will always be more work and to enjoy the time that you spend away from your laptop. It was also the realization that working shouldn’t be your entire life. You need to develop hobbies and build relationships within your community in order to be a happier human being. Q: What benefits has this balance given you? Anaiya: The biggest benefit this balance has given me both at work and in my life is that I’m incredibly present when I’m doing one or the other. When I’m working during the day, I’m entirely locked in and take advantage of each hour. And when I’m done with the workday, I’m actually done and can focus on my hobbies or my friends. It’s also taught me to plan in advance and it gives me a better understanding of how much work on average is expected for each project. Q: What advice would you give to a developer seeking to find a better balance? Anaiya: If you’re seeking a better balance, I recommend removing Slack from your personal phone and laptop. This way when you’re disconnected, you’re truly disconnected. Of course, there are some teams and companies that require you to be on call or working around the clock, but even then having a specific laptop or device with everything you need that is separate from your personal devices can help bridge this gap. Thank you to Anaiya Raisinghani for sharing her insights! And thanks to all of you for reading. Look for more in our new series. Interested in learning more about or connecting more with MongoDB? Join our MongoDB Community to meet other community members, hear about inspiring topics, and receive the latest MongoDB news and events. And let us know if you have any questions for our future guests when it comes to building a better work-life balance as developers. Tag us on social media: @mongodb #AwayFromTheKeyboard