Intern Spotlight: Margaret Stephenson

MongoDB
August 7, 2015
#Company

This year, MongoDB welcomed 34 university students to our intern program in Engineering and Marketing. In this series, we'll introduce you to some of the talented students who are helping us transform development and operations for how we run applications today.

We had the chance to sit down with Margaret Stephenson who is working on the JavaScript Engine Prototype.

Where are you from? Where do you go to school/what year are you? I’m from Pittsburgh, PA, and I’m a rising senior at Carnegie Mellon University.

What activities are you involved with at school? I’m active in my sorority, Alpha Chi Omega. I also tutor beginner programming classes and TA for introductory French.

What department are you in? Can you describe your project? MongoDB exposes a $where query operator to allow users to implement arbitrary queries in Javascript. These queries are run through the same V8 engine used by other parts of the database. However, V8 utilizes various optimizations that are suitable for long programs, but not so much so for short queries; additionally, BSON documents are converted to JSON before being fed into V8, and converted back to BSON after the query completes, which introduces additional overhead. My partner, Calvin Chan, and I are implementing a prototype Javascript engine as an alternative to V8 that performs queries directly on BSON data.

Why did you choose to intern at MongoDB? I chose MongoDB because I think the work we do here is exciting and important, even as interns. Plus, when I visited the office for my interview, I immediately felt comfortable here. Everyone is friendly and fun while still being serious about work.

Best thing about the MongoDB office? The standing desks - the best way to beat the post-lunch food coma!

Favorite intern event? I had the best pizza of my life on Scott’s Pizza Tour. But I’m also excited for trapezing :)

What is your favorite Seamless order? Salmon plate with lentils & cauliflower from Dig Inn!

What does a typical day look like for you? I wake up around 9 and head to the office at 10. I’ll eat cereal, check my email, and work until lunch - if it’s not a Seamless day, I’ll either pack a lunch or go out with other interns. In the afternoon, I work on my project and maybe have a meeting or go to an Intern Speaker Series talk. I’ll usually head out a little after 6:00.

Team Iphone or Team Android? Team iPhone! I think it’s more fun to use.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be? I’d go to Connemara in the west of Ireland - I’m convinced it’s the most beautiful place on earth.

Do you have any secret talents? I make pretty amazing lemon curd.

Favorite TV show to binge watch? I’ll always be loyal to Arrested Development, but I also went through Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in one sitting.

Fill in the blank I never head to the office without….. My sweater. It gets cold in here!

Interested in a career at MongoDB? Check out our careers page or email campus@mongodb.com.
MongoDB Careers

About the Author - Maggie Maggie Gibson is a rising senior at Trinity College and the Corporate Communications Intern at MongoDB this summer.

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Announcing the MongoDB Diversity Scholarship for Events

Technology companies have recently shared employment statistics that reveal a startling lack of ethnic and gender diversity in their workforce, especially in leadership roles. While the number of new technology jobs continues to increase, diversity numbers tend to stay the same. We are excited to offer a Diversity Scholarship for MongoDB Days in an effort to support members of underrepresented groups in technology. At MongoDB, we want to remove the barriers that prevent members of underrepresented groups in technology to attend our conferences. Recipients of the Diversity Scholarship will receive free admission to a MongoDB Day and a pre-conference workshop* of their choice. Find out more about eligibility and the award . Apply now ### Application: Scholarships will be awarded based on a combination of need and impact. Selection will be made by a committee that will review each application. All application info will be kept confidential. Applicants will be notified of their application's status approximately three weeks pre-event. Award: Scholarship recipients will receive free admission to an upcoming MongoDB Day and a pre-conference workshop* and may be featured in a blog post . Deadlines for the Diversity Scholarship application: MongoDB Days France : September 4, 2015 MongoDB Days Germany : September 18, 2015 MongoDB Days UK : October 2, 2015 MongoDB Days Silicon Valley : October 30, 2015 Learn more about the Diversity Scholarship and apply now . * Scholarship recipients are responsible for their own travel and lodging.

August 6, 2015
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Using MongoDB Skill Scanner to Build Better Training Programs

Technology leaders know that transformation is about more than just adopting modern technologies like MongoDB. The entire organization has to rally behind change — which is no easy task. The skills that modern development teams need are evolving faster than ever, and hiring to fill skills gaps can be too time-consuming and expensive of a process for many organizations. So it’s imperative that we plan for how we want to bring our people with us on our modernization journey, and proactively upskill them on the technologies we’re betting on. Because what happens if you choose MongoDB, but your developers don’t know how to use it? CIOs know that training programs are easier said than done. EY reported that 30% of CIOs acknowledge that their training programs are ineffective, and that they’re struggling to retain talent because of it. These leaders come to us to help them build and execute their MongoDB training programs , and seek advice on two extremely common yet critical challenges: How do we get away from the less effective one-size-fits-all approach? How do we measure the ROI of our training program and connect it to business impact? How we use MongoDB Skill Scanner to overcome training challenges Our Professional Services team uses a tool called MongoDB Skill Scanner to address both of these challenges. This tool helps us provide these three benefits to our customers looking to build a training program: Improve MongoDB proficiency: Teams can use Skill Scanner to quickly and easily assess the MongoDB skill gaps of their team members and gain a comprehensive understanding of their team’s MongoDB skills baseline. Increased productivity and accuracy: When team members have a comprehensive understanding of MongoDB, they are able to work more quickly and accurately on projects, leading to increased productivity and a higher quality of work. Save time and money with targeted Training: Using Skill Scanner, customers can avoid wasting time and money on trial-and-error learning. Instead, they can focus on improving their skills in a more targeted and efficient way with right-sized training plans. By leveraging this data, our customers’ engineers can engage in the right training at the right time, targeted for their job role and specific skill shortages. When a training program is built this way, engineers maximize their knowledge retention and minimize time away from their projects. Skill Scanner includes three role-based assessments, one for developers, database administrators, and DevOps respectively. Through a series of multiple choice questions, Skill Scanner provides customers with a clear understanding of their level of expertise across a set of technical skills that are critical for success in their role. After submitting the assessment, engineers will get results in each skill area outlining if they are beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Why data-driven training programs matter We’ve learned that it’s not enough to just tell teams to go watch training videos or webinars on their own, or to place everyone in the same one-size-fits-all program. Skills gaps vary from team to team, and individual to individual. The one-size-fits-all approach of some programs may not address individual learners' needs, wasting time and making it difficult for them to acquire new skills. By using Skill Scanner, we’re able to interpret this data to help determine which training courses your team should take. But we don’t only capture this data before doing training; we use Skill Scanner again after training programs are completed to see where immediate improvements have been made. This helps technology leaders prove the impact and ROI of their training, and gives them the confidence that their teams are ready to be successful with MongoDB. Developing a Precision Learning Program To go even further, our team can work with you to build a Precision Learning Program, where we use Skill Scanner data to build learning schedules that are unique to each individual. These schedules include a variety of short, blended, learning events such as classes, technical workshops, self-paced exercises, and project coaching. We’ve seen PLP lead to higher knowledge retention and of course, measurable project results. A customer who recently concluded their PLP saw a 43% increase in knowledge retention. Getting started building a personalized training program Skill gaps aren’t a novel problem IT leaders are facing. But with new digital courses, training, and technologies, the resources to close these gaps are at your fingertips. Skill Scanner and Precision Learning Program have been specifically designed to empower teams by offering targeted training that enhances their understanding of MongoDB. These short training events are carefully crafted to close skill gaps without compromising developer productivity. We’ve seen a variety of customers use this tool to help train their team’s individual needs, from needing to upskill new hires on their teams, projects with new MongoDB products, migrating to MongoDB Atlas, and more. It also saves your business the hours developers would've wasted searching for answers (and developers don’t want to spend their time that way, either). “We need help getting from point A to point B and feel MongoDB is uniquely positioned to help” — CTO at large insurance firm If you're interested in trying out MongoDB Skill Scanner or want to explore the MongoDB Precision Learning Program further, you can reach out to your account representative or contact us directly .

June 7, 2023