Culture

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Engagement Management at MongoDB: Meet Lalitesh Pal

I sat down with Lalitesh Pal , Senior Engagement Manager at MongoDB, to learn more about the Engagement Manager role and why joining the EMEA team is an exciting opportunity. Jackie Denner: Hi, Lalitesh. It’s great to meet you! Thanks for sharing some insight into Engagement Management at MongoDB with me. Can you start by telling me a bit about the Engagement Manager role? What are Engagement Managers responsible for? Lalitesh Pal: Engagement Management is a services sales role within the Professional Services organization at MongoDB. We ensure customers understand the value of MongoDB technology and drive the adoption of our technology in line with MongoDB best practices. Engagement Managers are engaged in the sales cycle early on in the process, typically right after the Account Executive has done their qualification. An Engagement Manager will then help gather the learning needs, drive the right services proposal, and determine how MongoDB can help customers develop applications on top of our data platform. Since a lot of MongoDB customers are new, or are new business units within existing customers, Engagement Managers also prepare tailored enablement plans to enable them with our technology, helping them become self-sufficient in the long run. JD: What skills and experience make someone successful in the Engagement Manager role? LP: Engagement Manager is a key role that enables our Sales team and helps further proliferate MongoDB product adoption in our customer base. To be really successful, you need techno-functional skills combined with strong commercial proposal and sales experience. If you have a winning and stretch mindset , you can ensure success is guaranteed. Needless to say, an Engagement Manager needs to have the collaborative spirit and be able to orchestrate things amongst multiple stakeholders - both internal and external. Finally, Engagement Managers need to feel confident working hand-in-hand with Account Executives to ensure that MondoDB is well-presented and positioned with the customer. I have been in services sales for about 7 years out of my 14 years of work experience. Engagement Managers need to understand technology on a high level. At the end of the day, the most successful Engagement Managers have a sales mindset and are able to connect with business stakeholders and explain the value of MongoDB Professional Services. It’s important to note that Engagement Management is not a delivery role. There are two aspects of Professional Services at MongoDB: one is services sales, the other is delivery. Engagement Managers work with a customer up until the deal is closed and have their own individual quarterly quotas. Once the deal is closed, an internal kickoff takes place with a Regional Delivery Manager and Project Manager who handle all aspects of delivery. JD: What is interesting and exciting about this role? LP: As an Engagement Manager, you’re not just a champion to your Account Executives and MongoDB, you’re also adding immense value to the customer and are their trusted advisor. In some cases, customers may reach out to you before reaching out to their Account Executive. For the customer, you are someone who is turning their ideas into reality by providing a way to make it happen. What really excites me about this role is the impact Engagement Managers have on our customers and the trust that we are able to build, which further reinforces the partnership spirit with them. JD: What learning and growth opportunities are there for someone in Engagement Management? What does the next career step look like? LP: Engagement Managers are currently aligned to Regional Vice Presidents and work at all levels of accounts, from our strategic “POD” accounts to the enterprise and the mid-market. From the Engagement Manager role, there is an opportunity to become a Senior Engagement Manager and eventually a Principal Engagement Manager. We offer career paths for those who want to remain individual contributors and those who are interested in managerial roles leading a team. MongoDB is also very committed to internal mobility, and there is an opportunity to transfer to other roles such as Customer Success or Practice Leads, both of which are global teams. JD: What is the team culture like? LP: Our EMEA team currently consists of six Engagement Managers who report to the Director of Engagement Management, and we’re growing rapidly. We have regular team catch-ups where we discuss weekly forecasts, what’s working and what’s not within our accounts, and share best practices with one another. There is a true open door policy across the entire team -- everyone is just a ping away! We also have a very defined onboarding program for Engagement Managers. Onboarding is spread over five weeks, and new hires will participate in our Sales Bootcamp, new hire technical training, and a services-specific onboarding program where you’ll be assigned to a buddy who is responsible for helping you get settled in. JD: The Professional Services function at MongoDB is still taking shape. What has the Engagement Management team’s journey been like so far? LP: I joined MongoDB a year ago, and we’re always looking for Engagement Managers to change the way MongoDB sells professional services. When I started, we were doing volume-based selling with small deal sizes and packages or “off the shelf” offerings for customers. Now, it’s much more strategic and we’re selling bespoke offerings with project or program-based delivery. Instead of merely advising on how to set up our data platform, we now engage in developing the complete application and working with customer contacts such as C-levels and VPs instead of just architects. We are working on end-to-end projects that innovate on top of MongoDB, showing customers how to deliver faster and better thanks to our technology. All of this results in MongoDB’s reputation as a strategic partner. JD: Why did you join MongoDB, and what makes you stay? LP: What really got me excited initially was MongoDB’s well-structured hiring process that helped me understand the culture, people, and products. It was the culture at MongoDB that made the difference. The people here are truly fantastic, and the hiring process allowed me to interact with a lot of individuals. The second thing is the product. MongoDB’s products are amazing, and there’s nothing else like it on the market (at least nothing that’s competitive). You also receive a lot of autonomy here in general, but in the Engagement Manager role specifically, you’re given the freedom to reach out to customers directly, run your own pipeline generation plan for accounts in line with account strategy, and many times speak to customers one-on-one without an Account Executive present. Employee recognition is an important part of our culture as well. If you are good at what you do, MongoDB will applaud you at all levels. I saw that I could really contribute and add value here, and I still feel that to this day. Interested in pursuing a career in Professional Services at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!

December 21, 2021

MongoDB is One of Battery Ventures' 25 Highest-Rated Public Cloud Computing Companies to Work For

Crain's recently recognized MongoDB as one of the best places to work in New York City. Today, Battery Ventures announced that MongoDB is also one of the best places to work in the cloud; specifically, Battery named us one of the " 25 Highest-Rated Public Cloud Computing Companies to Work For ." Battery compiles the list based on Glassdoor ratings and reviews left by employees. In other words, MongoDB's inclusion in the recognition depends upon current and past employees rating MongoDB highly. This makes sense to me, as I fit into both camps. I worked for MongoDB from 2013 to 2014, and loved it. I recently returned, and continue to find it the best place I've ever worked. Apparently I'm not alone in loving MongoDB. Indeed, in addition to this most recent honor from Battery, MongoDB also ranks high on Inc.'s " best led" and "best workplaces " lists, not to mention BuiltIn's " 100 Best Large Companies to Work For ." Why do people love working for MongoDB? For me, it's a combination of great people and great products. When I joined MongoDB back in 2013, it was because of its fresh, open approach to data. MongoDB was so approachable, so easy to use. Developers adored it and quickly became productive with it, making MongoDB one of the most popular databases on the planet. Since that time, MongoDB has added things like full-text search, data visualization, and more, making it the industry's leading application data platform. Which is cool, but incomplete. As much as I love to work for a market leader, it's the people of MongoDB that make it a near-perfect employer. Many of the people I loved to work with back in 2013 are still here, and they've been joined by other outstanding, humble people. MongoDB really is the perfect confluence of great technology and great people. Here is what a few of my MongoDB colleagues shared as to their reasons for working here. Annie Dane, Strategic Account Marketing MongoDB is an incredible place to build your career with a tremendous amount of support to do so, including a Learning and Development team that provides a multitude of training opportunities. Additionally, people at MongoDB really care about each other: we encourage a healthy work/life balance and new parents (and their babies) are very welcome at MongoDB, as evidenced during Covid. Mat Keep, Product Marketing Every organization’s success is now defined by software, and that software’s success is defined by data. MongoDB eliminates many constraints developers have faced working with data, which makes it such an exciting place to work as I get to help customers build new applications and modernize existing ones. At MongoDB we get to help address some of today's toughest challenges and most interesting initiatives shaping our world. Angie Byron, Community Management MongoDB is filled with humble, wicked-smart people who make a concerted effort to lift each other up. These traits hold true across departments, across org chart levels, and across levels of technical depth. Additionally, as a queer person, I've never been part of a company that takes diversity and inclusion so seriously and backs it up with real action. Just in the last few months, we've had a panel to talk together about our coming out experiences, trans-specific programming with amazing guest speakers, and more. At MongoDB, we are passionate about our mission of freeing the genius within everyone by making data stunningly easy to work with. We'd love to have you be part of our team. Interested in joining MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!

December 14, 2021

From Software Developer to Product Manager: Meet Maria van Keulen

Maria joined MongoDB a bit over five years ago and recently transitioned from Software Engineering to Product Management. I had the opportunity to learn about what Maria’s transition was like and how her experiences as a Senior Software Engineer have helped her succeed as a Product Manager. Maria was featured in a previous blog post that gives insight into her first three years at MongoDB and her experience as a woman in tech. Check it out here ! Hannah Friedfeld: Hi, Maria! Thanks for sharing your story with me. You’ve been at MongoDB for five years now; what encouraged you to transition to a Product Manager role? Maria van Keulen: A couple pieces of context are necessary here. A couple years ago, I gave a presentation to my team, Storage Execution, to walk through the components of our code base. At the time, I was mentoring a new engineer rotating on our team, and I volunteered to give this presentation to provide some more holistic context on the work that we do and the tickets this engineer was working on. This was the first time I had given a presentation like this in my professional journey at MongoDB, and I greatly enjoyed the task of taking complex topics and distilling them into a story. Shortly after, my manager informed me that we would be hiring for a dedicated Product Manager role; he encouraged me to apply if I was interested, particularly given my demonstrated knack for communicating complex topics to a wide audience. Although I enjoyed my Software Engineer role, I was interested in pushing my boundaries and undertaking a new challenge, especially given my positive experience preparing the presentation. The more I learned about Product Management, whether from colleagues or from literature, the more excited I was about making the shift. In the words of Marty Cagan in his book Inspired , "...behind every great product, there is someone—usually someone behind the scenes, working tirelessly—who led the product team to combine technology and design to solve real customer problems in a way that met the needs of the business". The crux of Product Management, in my view, is taking in various sources of data and using them to tell a powerful story. Great teams will design and build cool products no matter what, but when inspired by stories, they build solutions. In the end, I decided to apply for the open Product Management position on my team. Although the position ended up going to another candidate, I had the opportunity to instead join as the first Product Manager in our company's Developer Productivity organization. I would be working with the Evergreen team, who develops our internal CI/CD system. In order to ensure that the role was a good fit, I'd have a three month trial period where I'd continue to report to my Software Engineering manager, but focus exclusively on Product Management. I was ecstatic at this opportunity - I'd be working on a product that I knew and loved from my prior experience, be able to work with a team of talented engineers and product designers, and begin to build out Product Management representation in a new area for the company. Now, having been with the team for one and a half years, I'm so grateful to have made this shift, and am looking forward to continuing to shape the future of Product Management on Developer Productivity. HF: How did your experience as a Software Engineer prepare you for your new role as a Product Manager? MVK: I feel very fortunate to have begun my Product Management career with the Evergreen CI/CD system, since Evergreen had been one of my most-used products in my previous role. As a Software Engineer, I would run and analyze tests on Evergreen multiple times a day in order to ensure robustness of my code changes. With this experience under my belt, I was able to make an impact on the Evergreen team soon after I joined. At the time, we were in the midst of releasing two critical projects. The first was a full redesign and implementation of a portion of Evergreen's web UI, in collaboration with our Product Design team. The other project was to create a pre-built virtual development environment for engineers to use to help accelerate onboarding by simplifying workflow setup. Given my prior experience as a developer of the MongoDB database, I was able to offer unique insights on this developer workflow and help do some final QA testing before we released the projects more widely. More generally, my experience as a Software Engineer has been helpful in my ability to liaise between my team and our end users, relaying both user feedback as well as proposed solutions to their feedback. In order to offer guidance in a project, not only during definition but also during execution, I need to be able to understand where a solution is going in order to make sure it's in line with our original goals. In a similar vein, when it's time to advertise completion of a project, I need to be able to synthesize our end-to-end story based on the problems we set out to solve, and the way we tackled those problems. Finally, one of the aspects of the role that I'm most grateful for, and is unique to internal-facing Product Management, is our proximity to our users. Even with my experience as a developer, I knew that I had only scratched the surface of what Evergreen the product could do, and the kinds of workflows that exist across the company. Thanks to my experience as a Software Engineer and my collaboration with engineers across the organization, I had a great starting point for users to connect with. In my first few months, I was able to enrich my perspective by learning from these users (and others whom I hadn't met previously) to build a more holistic understanding of the product and its user base. HF: What new skills have you gained as a Product Manager? MVK: Product Management has given me a new appreciation for the art of learning to manage my tasks. As a Software Engineer, I'd have a fairly structured workflow where I'd generally have a small number of large tasks I could focus most, if not all, of my energy on, and switch between them if any of them were blocked on something. As a Product Manager though, my task list has ballooned, and the tasks are of various different complexities, ranging from answering a quick question to giving a presentation. Additionally, I need to consider time spent in meetings when planning my day, and any context switching between those meetings and my other tasks. One takeaway that's come in very handy is something I learned from the book The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman. Kaufman uses a "3-10-20 method" to describe task bandwidth in a given day: in this time frame, he has the capacity to do three major tasks, and ten minor tasks, where a major task is one which requires more than twenty minutes of continuous concentration. He combines this with Paul Graham's "Maker's Schedule vs. Manager Schedule", where the Maker's schedule involves large chunks of time for continuous concentration, and the Manager's schedule involves small chunks for meetings. Nowadays, I strive to keep all of my meetings in contiguous blocks where possible, and answer emails/messages at specific intervals to minimize interruptions. Product Managers are constant learners - in order to make sure our stories are up to date, we need to keep a regular pulse on everything that's going on with our products. One invaluable skill to building an understanding of one's users as well as one's team is knowing the right questions to ask. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with many users in my experience, and I've come to learn what questions bring the most insight. It's something of an art to be able to craft a question that's sufficiently open-ended to get people talking, but specific enough that they have somewhere to start with. Asking the right questions is also invaluable for more quantitative forums, for example surveys and software analytics. I'm happy to say I have been able to hone these skills - and will continue to do so - while on the job. HF: Why should a Software Engineer consider a role in Product Management at MongoDB? MVK: Software Engineering and Product Management are both enjoyable disciplines for their own reasons. The dichotomy that was explained to me, and that I now explain to others, is that Product Managers focus on problems, and Engineers focus on solutions. Of course, this boundary is not clear cut, and there is some overlap, but it serves as a basic guide for what each role will spend the bulk of their time doing. In general, Product Managers are responsible for gathering quantitative and qualitative data from users, assessing costs and benefits, and making a case for what we should and shouldn't build. As a result, Product Managers end up building a large breadth of data points across different areas of their products and their business. Engineers, in contrast, take project specifications and build robust, elegant, and innovative solutions to the problems at hand. They'll build a much deeper understanding of the functionality, and be resident experts on each feature they're involved with. If you're interested in getting involved with other areas of the business, and helping guide the strategic direction of a product, Product Management is the discipline for you. Additionally, since Product Management provides a window into various other disciplines across the business, it gives a great jumping point into any of those other areas. HF: How were you supported in your transition to Product Manager? MVK: As I mentioned previously, I was fortunate to begin Product Management for a product that I had already had ample experience with. The larger transitions had to do with acclimating myself to the new discipline and learning what working styles were most effective for that discipline. Fortunately, I had (and continue to have) the support of MongoDB's Product Organization, composed of individuals ready to offer advice and perspectives from their own various experiences. Whether it was understanding strategy for conducting research projects, brainstorming ideas for task management software, or building success metrics for a product, I could always count on the Product team to offer honest and open opinions. In particular, I'd like to thank my colleague Rachelle, for offering to mentor me over the course of my first year in Product Management, as well as my manager Chirag. Their input has been invaluable. I'm also very grateful to my former colleague Oz, who I got to know at MongoDB and now works as a VP of Product at a rapidly growing technology start-up, for giving me my initial window into Product Management, and pointing me to great resources to learn more about the discipline. Another valuable piece of my onboarding to Product Management was the opportunity to get hands-on in product research early on. I'm grateful to the Evergreen team's director, Brian, and the Developer Productivity team's VP, Cris, for all of their guidance and feedback on my research and contributions. Further, I appreciate all of the input that the Evergreen team as a whole has provided, including engineering context for feature complexity and additional considerations I hadn't anticipated. Finally, I'm grateful to Ben and Lara from the Product Design team for allowing me to sit in on their research for redesigning elements of the Evergreen workflow starting early on in my role, and sharing with me all of the user context they had obtained thus far. These were great learning materials for me to review as I onboarded myself to Evergreen's user base. HF: Tell me about your current team and its culture. MVK: I'm currently working with two teams under the Developer Productivity organization: the first is Evergreen, and the second is our Performance Solutions team TIPS ( T ooling and I nfrastructure for P erformance S olutions). I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with both of these teams, as well as the Developer Productivity organization at large. Developer Productivity is in a unique position at the company, in that it is a team whose customers are also its peers. As a result, we are in many ways a small startup within the company. Rather than having dedicated contacts in Sales, Marketing, Technical Support, and so on, we end up providing similar services ourselves in-house. Although we're not making an official sale with our users, we do need to market and "sell" our products and features to users who may initially be skeptical or hadn't previously heard of the features. It's also up to us to take a pulse on our market, conduct user research, and do competitive analysis where appropriate. Additionally, if a service is down or our users are blocked, the team provides technical support and troubleshooting assistance. Finally, part of the "small startup" culture includes getting hands-on and helping out in areas outside of one's immediate to-do list, whenever an extra hand is needed. It's a great inspiration to be part of such a driven and multifaceted organization. I started working with Evergreen last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when offices were largely closed. Having previously worked mostly in the office, I relied heavily on happenstance encounters and lunch breaks with fellow coworkers to make connections. The fully remote setting, combined with the uncertain times of the pandemic, posed new challenges to fostering relationships. I'm very grateful to the Evergreen team for welcoming me into their circle, and for organizing various (virtual) happy hours and game nights to allow the team to bond. Earlier this year, I agreed to help spread Product Management bandwidth across multiple areas in the Dev Prod organization in order to help build strategy in those areas. Around the same time, we formed TIPS, consolidating individuals from multiple teams working on various types of performance tooling into one group, in order to build a unified performance solution. We have a lot of powerful performance tools at our disposal, and a wide array of possibilities for where we can take them, so it's a very exciting time to be able to help shape the team's future. The Developer Productivity organization is an amalgam of many individuals from many different disciplines, across Engineering, Program Management, Product Design, and now Product Management. It's been a great privilege to work with and learn from each of these individuals, and build exciting products together. HF: What do you like most about your role as a Product Manager? MVK: One unique aspect of my role on Developer Productivity that I greatly appreciate is the opportunity to help shape the future of Product Management on the team. I joined as Developer Productivity's first Product Manager, and in my first year I was able to bring back our monthly release notes newsletter, successfully experiment with a new means of feedback collection from our users, and share learnings from Product Management best practices not just to my immediate teams, but also to the organization at large. An exciting bit of news is that we recently hired our second Product Manager on Developer Productivity, who will help us continue to expand our product reach across the organization. This new Product Manager will ramp up to take over Evergreen product responsibilities as I transition more of my bandwidth to TIPS. HF: What advice would you give to a Software Engineer who is interested in transitioning to a Product Manager role? MVK: I recommend reading up on the role and talking to current Product Managers to better understand the shift and the responsibilities that go with it. The following resources were recommended to me by fellow Product Managers and have been particularly illustrative: The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman Inspired by Marty Cagan (mentioned earlier) The Mind the Product blog Talking to Product Managers in your own company is a great starting point as well, and they'll be able to provide transparency on the different kinds of documents and processes they encounter day-to-day. I'd also suggest asking if it'd be possible to have a trial period as a Product Manager within your company - if so, that'd be a great opportunity to get hands-on product experience and make sure the role is a good fit. References Cagan, Marty. “Behind Every Great Product.” Inspired: How the Best Companies Create Technology-Powered Products and Services, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, 2018, pp. 5. Kaufman, Josh. “Cognitive Switching Penalty.” The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, Portfolio/Penguin, 2019, pp. 266–267. Interested in pursuing a career as a Product Manager at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!

December 13, 2021

Sales Development Series: Meet the EMEA Account Development Team

Sales Development is a crucial part of the Sales organization at MongoDB. Our Sales Development function is broken down into Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), who qualify and validate inbound opportunities from both existing and prospective customers, and Account Development Representatives (ADRs), who support outbound opportunities by planning and executing pipeline generation strategies. Both of these roles offer an excellent path to kickstarting your career in sales at MongoDB. In this blog post, you’ll learn more about our EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) outbound ADR team, which is divided into territories covering the UK & Ireland, the Nordics & Benelux, Central Europe, and Southern Europe. Hear from Manager David Sinnott and a few Account Development Representatives about the ADR role, team culture, and how MongoDB is enabling ADRs to grow their career. Check out the first blog in our Sales Development series here . An overview of Account Development in EMEA David Sinnot , Sales Development Manager for the UK & Ireland The Account Development team works very closely with our Enterprise Sales organization, supporting some of our largest customers across all industries. ADRs partner with Enterprise Account Executives to identify and uncover some of the biggest challenges facing their customers and through further discovery, position MongoDB as the solution to help solve whatever these challenges are. I started my own career in tech sales as a Sales Development Representative 11 years ago. In tech sales, reps will have lots of successes and challenges and personally, I have always used these experiences as a way to try and better myself. My advice to reps just starting out is when things are not going to plan, take a step back to analyze the reason why, learn from it, and implement some new methods to avoid it happening again. The opportunity to learn never stops at MongoDB. My team and I learn something new every day! Our products are always evolving and we continue to release added features and functionality, so we continually provide training around all of this. ADRs also spend a great deal of time learning about and implementing the sales methodology frameworks that MongoDB uses across the entire Sales organization. There are promotion paths available to all of the ADRs, whether that be staying in Sales or exploring other parts of the business, such as Marketing or Customer Success. All of the knowledge and skills picked up during their time as ADRs ensure that they hit the ground running once they are promoted to their next role within the business, whatever that may be. Some of the most successful Corporate and Enterprise reps in MongoDB started their own careers here as part of the ADR program. We do our absolute best to support all team members in deciding what is the best career path for them in the long term. MongoDB is disrupting an industry that largely hasn’t changed in over 40 years. We currently have around a 1% market share of the database market, which IDC predicts will be close to $119B by 2025, so the potential for MongoDB is still massive. With data being at the core of every modern-day business, organizations are having to modernize their legacy technology stacks and are starting to move more of their business functions to the cloud. MongoDB has an opportunity to play a big part in all of these initiatives and transformations. It’s still an incredibly exciting time for any sales rep out there who may be considering MongoDB for their next move. Hear from some team members Johanna Sterneck , Sr. Account Development Representative for Central Europe I joined MongoDB because I wanted to be part of a fast-growing, successful company that would help me grow professionally and personally. Over the past 10 months, every day has been a new experience and I feel that I’ve become part of something bigger. My onboarding experience was completely remote, but my team, manager, and everyone else at MongoDB have been very welcoming and supportive. The entire onboarding process was very well structured which allowed me to ramp up quickly. As an ADR, persistence in getting things done and positivity are definitely key factors in my role. What’s exciting is learning from the people around me and the great feedback culture we have. My team is very supportive, caring, and fun, and we are all happy to go the extra mile to achieve our goals. Federica Ramondino , Sr. Account Development Representative for Southern Europe I joined MongoDB because I believed it was a company where I could develop my skills and grow professionally. I’ve stayed because it lived up to my expectations! I see a clear career path for myself here, and I am excited to progress into my next role and get closer to my final objective of becoming a manager. To excel in an ADR role, you need dedication, good time and stakeholder management skills, and a positive attitude! My team is an amazing bunch of people that are always positive and keen on helping each other, even in a constantly evolving environment. What’s exciting about this role is all the other teams that you get to work with and learn from, from Sales to Customer Success and Marketing. Ruhan Jay Bora , Sr. Account Development Representative for the UK & Ireland I joined MongoDB because I was keen to work for a company creating experiences for the future, and I wanted to be a key player in helping companies digitally transform. I see myself staying at MongoDB for a while because of the heavy emphasis that leadership places on development. I have monthly catch-up sessions with the VP of Sales for EMEA, VP of Cloud Partners, and regular 1:1’s with my managers. Not a day goes by where I feel like I’m stagnating, and between learning about the latest in tech and sharpening my client-facing skills, there is plenty more room to grow! If you want to be successful as an ADR, the first thing you need to have is a tremendous work ethic. I believe sales is ultimately a game of grit, perseverance, and resilience. It’s not easy to learn so many technical concepts in the span of a few weeks, but our Sales Enablement team has compiled a bevy of excellent and readily digestible content that makes upskilling on MongoDB much easier. I will be moving into a new organization formed by our Sales team called the Associate Account Executive program. I harbor an ambition to become an Enterprise Account Executive, and this program will help me to develop the skills needed to work regularly with some of our most exciting clients! The feeling of seeing a client's satisfaction and astonishment at how MongoDB can solve some of their technical and business challenges truly amazes you. Hearing how great MongoDB is directly from clients makes you realize we really have a great product. I also find that the opportunity to accelerate your career here is extremely tangible. The company is young enough for you to shape your own path and no goal is too ambitious. The ability to engage with senior leadership up to the C-level is great too. Interested in joining the Sales team at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our team and would love for you to transform your career with us!

October 26, 2021

Moving Across the World and Changing Roles: Meet Jake McInteer

At MongoDB, our employees are empowered to transform their careers and grow in the direction they want to. Jake McInteer is a perfect example of that — after building his career in London at MongoDB on our Solutions Architecture team, he is relocating to Sydney while transitioning to the Enterprise Sales team in the region. Take a look at this interview and learn more about his career path and what he’s most excited for in his new role. Jess Katz: Tell us a bit about how you wound up working at MongoDB Jake McInteer: I’m a Kiwi (New Zealander) who has always had a passion for technology - I think it’s probably in my blood as my parents met at the Government Computing Centre back in the ‘80s and just about everyone on my dad’s side of the family works in technology as well! I tried to be different from my family and study Accounting at university but quickly got bored and switched to an Information Systems degree. After that, I moved into a Consulting role with IBM, but I always felt myself gravitating more toward go-to-market functions. Eventually, I had the opportunity to move to a Presales role in a smaller company specialising in data and analytics and lept at the chance. My time in my first Presales role really confirmed for me how great of a space it is - an intersection between technology and business that gave me an opportunity to work on a wide variety of different things. In 2019, I made the call to move over to London with my partner for some overseas experience and started looking for a new role. MongoDB’s reputation of a high performance culture that was disrupting a market dominated by stodgy legacy vendors really excited me and put them at the top of my list. On landing in London in July 2019, I met with the Solutions Architecture Manager for Northern Europe and together we pushed through a handful of interviews within two weeks. The rest, as they say, is history. JK: What was your onboarding experience like? JM: In one word, incredible. From MongoDB University, through coaching sessions with people across the Solutions Architecture team and trips to HQ in New York City attending Sales Bootcamp and New Hire Technical training - I was left in awe at the resources MongoDB invests to give new hires everything they need to launch their careers at MongoDB. JK: What does a Solutions Architect (SA) at MongoDB actually do? JM: An SA at MongoDB is a technical expert that helps customers understand and evaluate MongoDB. We work closely with the Sales team to help potential customers understand the value of MongoDB as well as when and why to use it. In practice, this means we work closely with our customers’ development teams, with various people spanning software engineers, database administrators, product owners, security specialists, architects and more! We also support our marketing team by running various workshops and webinars. From time to time we also work on our own projects, building out various demos and applications. JK: Tell us a bit about what you’ve been working on as an SA JM: Being an SA at MongoDB has given me the opportunity to work on some of the biggest transformation initiatives of some of the largest companies in the world. I’ve been privileged to work with leading organisations across Financial Services, eCommerce, and even the Air Transport industries while in the role, and on projects that affect millions of customers and billions of passengers - it’s been incredibly rewarding. As we went virtual due to COVID-19, I also ran some of our first virtual-only workshops and webinars, including building out demos and hands-on workshops for developers to complete. JK: So what’s next for you in terms of your career? JM: I’m actually right in the middle of making a big move! My manager and I have always had regular development conversations since I started, and last year I expressed an interest to continue my growth and development into a full-time sales role, as well as my personal desire to move back down under and be a little closer to family in NZ. While I absolutely love the MongoDB team in the UK and have developed friendships here that will last for a lifetime, I am looking forward to further building my career with the team in Sydney. This move is also a career change! With huge amounts of support from my manager and others across the business, I’m making the transition from Solutions Architect to Enterprise Account Executive in Sales. I start my new role at the beginning of September and I’m excited to get started. It’s been awesome being a part of our UK team as it has gone from strength to strength, and I’m excited to get started with our Australian Sales team next. The Australian team is firing on all cylinders and is led by the impressive Jeremy Powers. In my view, it’s a great place, team, and environment for me to make the shift into a full-time Sales role and to continue developing my career all while being closer to family back home. JK: What are you most excited for in your new role? JM: Two things have got me super excited to get started. Firstly, the opportunity to make the transition into an Enterprise Account Executive role and join our formidable sales organisation is an opportunity too good to pass up. Secondly, I’m particularly looking forward to the opportunity to work with businesses in New Zealand and introducing new customers to the incredible technology we offer here at MongoDB. New Zealand has a burgeoning tech sector and some incredibly interesting companies and opportunities - one great example is THL Digital who we’ve done a lot of work with recently. I can’t wait to help them solve some of their biggest challenges and give developers down under a better way to work with data. Interested in pursuing a career at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe , and would love for you to build your career with us!

August 31, 2021

Intern Series: Making an Impact Across Two Summers - Meet Talía Ayala-Feliciangeli

Talía Ayala-Feliciangeli is a rising senior at Georgia Tech who has spent this summer working remotely as a Product Design Intern. As a returning intern with two summers of remote work on the same team under her belt, Talía is leaving her internship with a unique set of experiences and lessons about #LifeatMongoDB. From the transparency about future visa sponsorship to one-on-one professional development that she’s received, Talía has spent these two summers impressed with the supportiveness of MongoDB’s program and her peers. In this interview, you’ll hear more about what’s made MongoDB a lasting fit. Alex Wilson: Hey Talía! It’s so good to meet you! I want to start this final interview of the Intern Series with one of the questions that I’ve been asking everyone: what brought you to MongoDB? Talía Ayala-Feliciangeli: During my first round of interviews with MongoDB, my recruiter asked me how I would feel about living in New York long term. I remember being super shocked that a recruiter was being so open about what an internship could turn into, especially when she started describing how MongoDB approaches the sponsorship process with employees who are from outside of the U.S. As an international student, it can be challenging to navigate the process of applying to jobs or internships. Unfortunately, not all companies are open to hiring individuals who may require sponsorship at any point in the future. The call with my recruiter was the first time I experienced a company being so open and honest regarding the immigration logistics that international students have to constantly think about, and it made me realize how supportive of a company MongoDB is. Both MongoDB and the specific position I had applied for seemed super interesting, but ultimately what made me decide to intern at MongoDB was the professional support, encouragement, and excitement I felt from the recruiter, the researchers I spoke to, and everyone else I had the chance to meet throughout the interview process! AW: Awesome! It’s so meaningful to see these experiences of openness and encouragement echoed so strongly. What sort of work have you been doing? TA: I work in the UX research team, which is a part of the larger Product Design team at MongoDB. The research team is currently growing, and it's exciting to get to learn different approaches to research through conversations with the new team members! My favorite project so far has been the Atlas Billing Alerts project I'm currently working on. It’s my favorite because due to the nature of the project I’ve gotten the chance to understand how different teams across MongoDB collaborate to build the billing experience, and the participants I’ve spoken to have had very different needs than the user groups I’ve worked with in the past. The stakeholders for the project are closely involved and have provided me with valuable feedback at every step of the project,which has helped me hone my approach to research and have a better understanding of how to translate stakeholder needs into research goals! Plus, I got to meet people throughout different teams at MongoDB which I hadn’t spoken to previously,such as Technical Account Managers and Cloud Support Associates. AW: I think it’s so interesting that besides being a return intern, you’ve also been able to return to the same team. How was your professional experience different the second time around? TA: As a return intern, I had the unique experience of starting the summer already understanding how different teams and processes work at MongoDB. I felt that this knowledge translated into me feeling more confident about my work: onboarding was much quicker, I had context for the projects I was working on, and it was much easier for me to connect with stakeholders for my projects. At times, I felt like a full-time researcher rather than an intern! Plus, having the same mentor both summers meant I got to meet her for coffee and hang out before the internship started this summer,which meant a lot. AW: That’s so great. Having worked remotely both summers, I was wondering if you could speak to the extent that your team supported you virtually? TA: At the start of the summer, my mentor and I had conversations about what I find harder to accomplish when working remotely. After identifying what those things were, we brainstormed ideas of how I could address them and how my mentor could support me with them. For example, I have a harder time staying focused when I’m working remotely from my apartment. My mentor and I decided I would create a detailed timeline breaking down what I needed to do for each of my projects, and we scheduled regular check-ins twice a week so I could share my progress and get her feedback. In general, my team provided a lot of support within this remote work model by creating spaces for me to consistently ask for feedback on my projects or just chat about our approaches to research. In the past I was almost shy about asking for feedback, but my team setting aside time for us to chat about these things despite being remote really helped me grow! AW: That’s definitely an enormous upside of such a collaborative company culture! Have you found that culture to be a positive fit? TA: The culture at MongoDB is incredibly supportive, encouraging, and collaborative. My background is in psychology and research, and I was concerned with how a lack of a technical background could impact my work at MongoDB. Everyone I’ve reached out to has been super friendly and more than happy to share their knowledge (or just have a coffee)! I’ve also really appreciated how encouraging my team members are when it comes to me learning and exploring different interests, be it a side project with another intern, implementing new tools for research, or chatting about the research goals I have. AW: As someone with a political science background, I can definitely understand the fear of coming into the tech industry without a very technical background, so it’s great to hear that you’ve also had such a positive experience tackling that learning curve—thank you for your willingness to share. Finally, I’d love to hear what your favorite thing about MongoDB has been! TA: My favorite part is that I get to have ownership over my work: while my mentor has provided me with constant guidance and support, I’ve always felt that I am given the freedom and trust to decide how to go about my work, from structuring actionable research plans to conducting user studies. While it was intimidating at first, it has been an incredible learning opportunity to understand how to conduct UX research in an industry context! Interested in interning at MongoDB? Our 2021/2022 Software Engineering Summer Internship for the US is now live and accepting applications for students

August 30, 2021

Intern Series: Mentorship Opportunities Galore - Meet Elena Chen

Elena Chen is a rising senior at the University of California, Berkeley who is working as a Software Engineering Intern in our New York City office. After learning about MongoDB from her friends, she decided to spend her summer here so she could complete socially impactful work while benefiting from a renowned professional development program. Through the summer, she’s found incredible support from her mentor, enjoyed community in Underrepresented Genders in Tech (UGT), and unwound with an awesome group of peers. Keep reading to hear about what’s made Elena’s time at MongoDB so special. Alex Wilson: Hey Elena! Thanks for taking the time to tell us about your time here at MongoDB. First, can you tell me a little bit about how you got here? Elena Chen: Well, some of my friends interned at MongoDB before and they all told me that they had such a great time here! But one of the biggest reasons I decided to intern at MongoDB was that I had the best recruiting experience here. I felt supported, respected, and valued by the Campus team and the interviewers throughout the entire process. I thought that must be what it is like to work at MongoDB and I wasn't wrong! Moreover, I always wanted to work for a company that is contributing positively to society. Knowing that I will be making software that helps developers around the world build valuable applications and services, I decided to intern at MongoDB. Lastly, I chose MongoDB because it has one of the most well-organized internship programs in the industry. Besides providing mentorships and the resources for interns to succeed on their technical projects, the program also consists of intern social events, speaker series, and engineering roundtables. I wanted to immerse myself in all of these events so that I could make the most out of my internship and have a fun and memorable summer! AW: Amazing! Has your work ended up being this positive? And what’s the best project you’ve worked on? EC: My favorite project would be my main project for this summer! I am building Evergreen's new Waterfall page, also known as the Project Health page. It is the page where MongoDB engineers can view status summaries on the tasks run for their projects. The new design of the page is going to enhance MongoDB engineers' user experience on Evergreen. I love my project because it will be used by MongoDB engineers and have a meaningful impact even after my internship ends. Additionally, working on this project has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Every day I look forward to building the next part of the page, and seeing everything coming together has been one of the greatest feelings and senses of accomplishment I have ever experienced. I feel competent in tackling the next major component and yet challenged to think hard and learn new things. While polishing my React and Redux skills and writing industry-standard code, I have learned to write GraphQL queries, schemas, and resolver functions. I have also learned to create front-end testing using Cypress and Storybook, two technologies I would have never used in a classroom setting. AW: Of course, the 1:1 mentorship is such a huge part of MongoDB’s internship experience. How’s that been for you? EC: Besides answering my questions and helping me resolve technical issues, my mentor has been my biggest support and cheerleader since the beginning. Every day he blocks out an hour on his calendar as "office hour" to answer my questions and code along my side. Every week, he asks me how he can better support me and make my internship a great experience. He celebrates my accomplishment every time I complete a task, and he guides me through the challenge every time I am blocked. One thing my mentor has helped me with is boosting my confidence. Having never worked at a big company before, I was afraid at the beginning that I did not have the experience or skill to do well at my job. Nevertheless, my mentor reassured me and gave me a positive outlook on the project. He always tells me that he believes I will be able to finish my project by the end of my internship, and his faith in me has been one of the biggest drivers that motivates me to work hard every day. AW: I heard you’re also part of MongoDB’s affinity group Underrepresented Genders in Tech (UGT)—have you also found support there? EC: When I joined UGT I was paired with a UGT mentor. To me, my mentor has been a great source of support, help, and fun this summer. We met every two weeks where she checked in on me to make sure my internship was going great and I could ask her any questions. Sometimes we ate together over Zoom, others we talked passionately about Euro 2020 soccer games. From my mentor, I was able to learn a lot more about MongoDB and things outside my own team, and I received a lot of help with my final intern presentation. Just knowing that I have my UGT mentor to go to if I ever get stuck has been a great comfort to me. UGT has also allowed me to learn about career development through its career panels. I really valued these opportunities because it was about something I could not have learned in school. One thing I loved about the event was that I was able to hear from mentors not just from my own field, software engineering, but also from product design and managerial roles. Because everyone came from different backgrounds and had different experiences, I was able to relate to each mentor on different points and apply their advice to my own life and career. Some of the mentors were once interns, and some were in positions where the mentees would want to be in three years, so it was amazing to talk to them and learn about how we could get to our next goal. What I have learned from the two panels has been eye-opening to me and will set me up for a successful career. I am so happy that I joined UGT this summer because it has provided me with a community of mentors whom I could reach out to for help and advice. I actually just coffee-chatted a UGT mentor this morning. I was amazed by her experience and wisdom at the UGT career panel, so I reached out to her, and she was glad to set up a short talk with me. In my opinion, what I learned in my thirty minutes with Samy would have taken me at least a year to figure out on my own. She gave me a fresh perspective on going to graduate school and working in the industry, and I left the meeting with all my questions answered and a sense of clarity. AW: Before we go, can you tell some of our prospective interns about what you’ve learned about the company this summer? EC: One thing I have learned through my interviews and the internship is that everyone at MongoDB genuinely wants me to succeed! During the recruiting process, my recruiter sent me a lot of resources to help me prepare for the interviews and learn more about the company. I still remember I thought I did so poorly on my first interview that I emailed the recruiter afterward to apologize for my performance. But she quickly reassured me, and it turned out that I was just the worst critic of myself. During the interviews, I felt as if I was coding alongside the interviewers like coworkers. They pushed me to find the best solution to the problem and guided me when I was having trouble finding the bug. I really enjoyed meeting the recruiter and the interviewers during the process, and I could not wait to work with these people one day. After starting my internship at MongoDB this summer, I realized I made the right decision. My project mentor, my teammates, my campus program manager, and everyone else I have met here have been nothing but supportive and helpful. Since day one I feel I have been provided the resources and support to succeed in my role. My project mentor and campus program manager also meet with me often to make sure that I am on the right track with the project and discuss how they can better support me. My teammates also help answer my questions daily and make me feel welcome in all of the team events so that I could have a successful and fun internship. Whether you are just starting the recruiting process or about to embark on your journey at MongoDB, know that you will be supported by a group of people who want to see and help you succeed in your role and in life! Interested in interning at MongoDB? Our 2021/2022 Software Engineering Summer Internship for the US is now live and accepting applications for students

August 25, 2021

Sustainability in Action: Meet MongoDB's Green Team

MongoDB affinity groups are employee-led resource groups that bring together employees with similar backgrounds, interests, or goals. They play an important role in our company and culture. Our affinity groups build community and connections, help us raise awareness of issues unique to their members’ experiences, and offer networking and professional development opportunities. Green Team is a MongoDB affinity group focused on sustainability and environmental responsibility. Hear from Derek Lowry , Senior Director of International Finance and the global Green Team lead based in Dublin, to learn about Green Team’s initiatives and goals, and the impact it is making on our company and our planet. Going green Green Team began in April 2020 after a group of people across departments decided it was time our company took greater action to positively impact the climate crisis. We believe businesses are one of the greatest levers for change in our society, and we want MongoDB to be part of that change. Green Team is committed to driving MongoDB to become a sustainable, social, and environmentally responsible company that is relentless in its pursuit of reducing its negative impact on the environment. How we're making an impact At the outset of Green Team, we determined there were two work streams to concentrate on: education on sustainability topics and collecting data on our carbon footprint as a company. We called these groups “Community” and “Collaboration,” respectively. Our Community group has held multiple webinars and workshops on sustainability for our employees over the past year covering topics such as how to live a more sustainable lifestyle, the problem of plastic pollution, and how to have a sustainable holiday season, as well as a “grow it yourself” workshop and a deep dive into recycling centers for our New York City employees. The team also compiled a plant-based cookbook that received a lot of positive feedback and engagement from employees across the globe. We continuously enforce the message of the “power of one” by highlighting that all our voices and actions together can have a positive impact on the climate crisis. We are not just relying on our employee base, but also focusing on taking action as a company. Our Collaboration team led a project to calculate our carbon footprint for 2019 and 2020 together with our climate partners, Watershed. Our carbon footprint baseline project is just the start of a climate strategy designed to help us significantly reduce our impact on the environment over the coming years, especially as we grow and scale as a company. We strive to incorporate sustainability into every aspect of the business, from product development to office selection, and we hope to make more announcements regarding this strategy over the coming months. Green Team's plans for the future Due to the commitment of more than 250 Green Team members globally — particularly the Green Champions who lead individual projects — we believe we are well positioned to execute on our projects and strategies over the coming year. We have had strong support from our executive sponsor, Michael Gordon, and we believe there is an appetite within the company to address the climate crisis and be part of the positive change. There also has been an increase in demand from both internal and external stakeholders for us to take action on the climate crisis, consistent with overall regulatory and market trends. Our future plans revolve around the two main work streams we initially created: educating our workforce and taking action as a company to reduce the overall impact we have on the environment. Hear from Green Team members Annie Black , Software Engineer, New York City "I joined Green Team because I thought there was more we, as a company, could be doing about sustainability. I realized I knew very little about day-to-day sustainability practices after joining Green Team, so most of my involvement now is with the Community side of the group, which focuses on educating employees." "I love seeing how people share their ideas and the things they’re passionate about in the #greenteam Slack channel, and I’ve really enjoyed learning and growing with everybody! One of my favorite recent projects was our Green Team Holiday Recipe Book. The focus was on meat reduction and an introduction to more plant-based diets, which was a new topic for me. I think it was a great way to help people feel connected to their colleagues during the remote holiday season." "The Collaboration side of Green Team is also doing a great job with our Watershed collaboration. The team at Watershed is assisting us with calculating our carbon footprint across the company and advising us on how to reduce it. This has such a big impact, and it’s great to see MongoDB investing in our planet!" "For Earth Week 2021, Green Team hosted webinars and activities as a way for MongoDB employees to learn more about sustainability and other topics related to environmental responsibility. I’m also very excited for the day we’re able to organize some in-person events! Nothing is planned yet, but I hope to help initiate plant-based tastings, park cleanups, and tree plantings." Shakti Sharma , Data Governance Associate, Gurugram "I joined Green Team because I wanted to help drive sustainability and green choices at an organizational level. We have some super energetic folks around the world at MongoDB who are passionate about bringing positive change. I am fairly new to MongoDB, so this group has also helped me build a network across the organization and constantly supports my personal growth." "Green Team encourages employees to make sustainable choices every day, whether it’s choosing eco-friendly items for gifts or wearing reusable masks. I believe organizations have some corporate responsibility to ensure their employees are safeguarding the environment as much as possible, and I’ve started focusing on how I can make a positive difference for the environment." Interested in pursuing a career at MongoDB and joining Green Team? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!

August 20, 2021

Intern Series: Self-taught Engineer Meets Atlas Core - Meet Ojima Abraham

Ojima Abraham is a rising junior at Franklin & Marshall College who is working as a Software Engineering Intern at our New York City office. A self-taught developer, Ojima brings a unique perspective to his work on the Atlas Core team, where he’s been grateful to find meaningful support, consequential work, and lasting friendships. In this interview, you’ll hear about the people and culture that have made this program a perfect fit. Alex Wilson: Hey Ojima! Nice to meet you. I heard that you’re a self-taught engineer, which sounds so impressive. Can you tell me more about that? Ojima Abraham: The process was both exciting and daunting; since I had no personal computer at that time, I had to use my phone to learn and practice coding, but it was exciting because I was fascinated by the idea of giving the computer some instructions and seeing the computer execute those instructions. Later on, I was able to ask my friends to use their computers for practice while I taught them how to write basic HTML and CSS code in return. AW: Wow—that’s fantastic! What ended up bringing you to MongoDB? OA: I was just looking up summer internships and found MongoDB as one of the options. But I decided to intern at MongoDB because of my interview experience. One of the things that was emphasized the most during the interviews was how interns get to do work that makes it to production which I thought was very exciting; I didn't want to spend my Summer working on some "intern project" that was going to be thrown away at the end of the summer. I also really liked how supportive and positive all my interviewers and recruiters were. AW: Absolutely. I’ve got to agree there, the Campus Recruiting team has some awesome people. What team have you been working with this summer? OA: I am currently interning on the Atlas Core (Atlas 1, 2, 3) team. MongoDB Atlas is a database-as-a-service that enables you to build applications and scale faster. Atlas Core 1 has really enabled me to work on very interesting, challenging, and useful projects and that has been one of the highlights of my internship experience. In the simplest way possible: I am currently working on a new feature that will allow users to add a new collection type that would automatically organize itself in buckets, making it easy to be queried. This project has really challenged me to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I've been able to push myself to learn more about Online Archive and the components of our project. AW: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned this summer? OA: Normally, I would want to list one thing that's related to developing my technical skills, but I feel like the most interesting thing I've learned this summer is how the different roles in a tech company work on a technical project from inception to production. I've been able to learn the roles that Product Managers, Engineers, Project Managers, Technical writers, and others play into making a product successful; I've been able to learn about the different areas of agreement and compromise and how strong communication is important among these different roles in a tech company. AW: Have you gotten support along the way? OA: My mentors have been the most supportive people I know! I've learned so much from them, gained so much support from them and feel like I have been able to make lifelong friends with my mentors. They are always available to answer any of my questions, have been very patient while helping me learn the things that I don't know, they have given me ownership of my work and have made sure I have never felt lost in this internship! The other interns on my team have been so supportive, providing me with great feedback and support. I genuinely feel like it was the perfect fit! AW: I’m so glad! More broadly speaking, would you say this supportiveness is a central part of MongoDB’s culture? OA: I would describe the culture here at MongoDB as supportive, positive, uplifting, inclusive, and caring. Everyone is willing to help you, answer your questions, push you to become your best self while making you appreciate your own individual strengths and celebrate the diversity of thought and experience that everyone brings to the company. AW: And have your self-taught roots influenced your experience here at all? OA: ​​I feel like because of the initial challenge I faced while learning to code, it removed the fear of stepping into unfamiliar territory at MongoDB. I'm not afraid to pick up challenging and unfamiliar tasks/tickets because my mindset is always "I'll figure it out somehow, just like I figured it out when I first started learning to code." AW: That’s a fantastic mindset. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience, Ojima. I just have one final question: what’s your favorite part about being part of the MongoDB community? OA: This might sound cliché, but hands-down the people. It's just a positive environment where I have found my own people and have never felt out-of-place at all. Everyone seems happy to be here and that infectious happiness is spread around everyday. Interested in interning at MongoDB? Our 2021/2022 Software Engineering Summer Internship for the US is now live and accepting applications for students

August 18, 2021