Life at MongoDB
Inside and outside MongoDB - who we are
Engagement Management at MongoDB: Meet Lalitesh Pal
December 21, 2021
Culture
Corporate Sales at MongoDB: Meet the Reps
MongoDB Corporate Account Executives sell into some of the world's highest growth and IT-focused companies, with a goal of securing net new logos in organizations of up to 1500 employees. They drive and build solutions that serve the best interest of our customers to help them innovate faster than ever before, often working directly with CTOs, Engineering/IT leaders, and technical end users. A majority of our Corporate Sales team sits in Austin, Texas, with other reps and leaders spread across the U.S. Meet three Corporate Account Executives to learn about their experience in the role and why our Corporate Sales org is a great place to grow your career. Sebastian Cañizares , Sr. Corporate Account Executive, Austin I joined MongoDB as a Cloud Account Executive back in 2019 to build a career. Not knowing it at the time, I felt I had reached a personal sales career plateau. I wanted a challenge in an industry that was vastly different from what I was accustomed to, with a sales process that could help me create a strong foundation. MongoDB sold me on three things: The “Sales MBA” : I didn't know of any other company investing as much time and resources on an individual as MongoDB was. A sales team with a formalized sales process and a full-fledged sales enablement team caught my eye. Leadership : The leaders at MongoDB come from diverse backgrounds. Going through the interview process I spoke with multiple leaders that challenged me intellectually and at the same time were so selfless. I was leaning in further. Market opportunity : At the time, MongoDB was a tiny piece of a growing database pie. Noticing the trends in the market, I wanted to be a part of a company that was positively influencing how technology was being made. Data was at the crux of it all, and MongoDB was challenging a legacy mindset while at the same time establishing incredible groundswell among its core community: developers. Now it was a matter of capitalizing on it and MongoDB was. I was fully bought in. I’m so glad I joined MongoDB back then, and truly believe it was a career altering decision. After nine months in the Cloud role, I transitioned to a Corporate Account Executive. If you haven’t read about our BDR to CRO program , the transition from Cloud to Corporate was one of the first internal sales promotion tracks that the Corporate Sales org built out. There was a promotion path in place with clear guidelines on what was needed to not only reach the next step but also excel in it. During the transition, I had the benefit of following reps that had gone through the process before me and were successful in that next role. They never hesitated in offering their time, helped whenever anyone asked, and created an environment that was both collaborative and positive. Additionally, the leadership team challenged me every step of the way. I was developed in the Cloud role by a former sales rep (who became my manager) who enabled me with the information and knowledge to foundationally succeed at MongoDB. He invested time and resources, and I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity he prepared me for. Not only that, I had support from other leaders that wanted to see me succeed. They met with me on a regular basis, mentored me, and helped me gain a footing in the Corporate role. MongoDB’s leadership fosters a merit-based culture all while supporting you along the way. I experienced that in my transition from Cloud to Corporate and still see it in my current role today. It is rare that a company holds up to the things they say during the recruiting process, let alone over-deliver. MongoDB has done just that. I’ve been able to grow my sales career while also getting to talk to people daily that are creating things that are changing the way we interact with technology. It’s the perfect blend of career opportunity, intellectual curiosity, and enablement that I don’t believe I could get anywhere else. Now, why should someone join the Corporate Sales team? You get to witness a company that is fundamentally changing the status quo at the highest level You receive an enormous investment in sales enablement You collaborate with a team that is hungry, competitive, and best in class You work for an established company that is constantly innovating and growing You learn from some of the best sales leaders out there You grow your career at a company that values meritocracy and promotes from within You get to help build history Paige Springfield , Sr. Corporate Account Executive, Austin I took a leap and joined MongoDB in April 2020. When evaluating the opportunity, I had three top criteria. Market opportunity : MongoDB is a leader in the database industry and we’re just getting started. The product is best-in-class and mission critical to customers across all industries - this means uncapped opportunity and earning potential. The team : It was extremely important to me to be surrounded by colleagues who would uplevel and challenge me. Growth and development potential : MongoDB (especially the Corporate Sales org) is just getting started. We’re positioned to grow exponentially in the next two years and the number one focus across the leadership team is people development and promoting from within. At previous companies, I never felt invested in from a sales enablement perspective. Ramping typically meant a couple 1-hour training sessions and then it was off to the races. Here at MongoDB, I was blown away by the onboarding and training process from day one. I’d compare the experience to getting your MBA in sales. I think it speaks to leadership’s commitment to invest in people, their development, and ultimately their long term success. Our Sales Enablement team set me up with all the tools I needed to master the complex technology and a repeatable sales process. I’ve been on the team for a year and a half and seen a ton of success. Recently, I was promoted to a senior-level sales role and accepted into leadership upskill as part of our BDR to CRO program. Working at MongoDB has been the most transformative, rewarding time in my career. If you’re looking to uplevel yourself (both professionally and personally), the Corporate Account Executive role is an incredible opportunity. Drew Oros , Corporate Account Executive, New York City I joined MongoDB for three key reasons. Professional Development : My long-term goal is to become a professional executive for pre-IPO tech companies. I see a tremendous opportunity to build that expertise in the cloud infrastructure/services space. I know to get there, I need a great story selling technology that’s mission critical and best in class - that’s without a question MongoDB, and it has given me a great opportunity to start writing that story. Leadership and people : It was important to me to be around leaders and sellers I feel I could learn from, as I'm a firm believer that your network is equal to your net worth. At MongoDB, I feel like I’m surrounded by current and future household names in the software industry. Product and market opportunity : I only want to sell best in class, mission critical technology. It also has to be the right timing, and have a huge, total addressable market, and strong go-to-market motion. I knew if I found that, magic would happen. MongoDB is the most downloaded NoSQL database , and it fits a wide variety of use cases for mission critical applications. The TAM is estimated to be $82 billion by 2022 , and MongoDB’s sales org and process are key differentiators. Ramping into the Corporate Account Executive role can be challenging, however, you are amongst some of the best people in the software industry to learn from. I identified the skills that were key to becoming a great seller and met with three to five of the top reps to learn how they created a pattern of success in each of those areas. Ultimately, I identified pipeline generation best practices, meeting preparation, discovery calls, New Business Meeting excellence, champion building, and paper process as the key skills fundamental to creating, moving, and closing pipeline. “Build together” is one of MongoDB’s core values and a big reason why colleagues are so open to sharing what makes them successful. If you put in the time and effort, there’s no shortage of resources to learn from here. Overall, this year has been a great success story for me as I’m 200%+ of my yearly number and won the Most New Logos award in Q3. We believe in a culture of promotion - internal promotions are core to MongoDB’s culture and strategic to how the company scales. MongoDB does not get in the way of your personal growth, but rather accelerates it. The BDR to CRO program lays out what good versus great looks like and what you need to do in order to move farther down that path. Whatever your career goals are, MongoDB is a company that supports your interests and provides the investment to help get you there. Interested in pursuing a career in Corporate Sales at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!
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!
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!
Five Tips for Creating Your Product Design Portfolio
The UX, Interaction, and Product Design professions have experienced a massive increase in demand as more and more companies embrace technology and recognize the importance of providing a positive user experience. A designer’s portfolio is needed for almost every job application or interview process, regardless of your level of experience, and it should be an accurate representation of your process and craft. If you’re working on your portfolio or starting to interview, here are a few tips to help make your portfolio stand out. Keep it updated with your recent work or projects you’re most proud of. About 2-4 projects is usually a good target (depending on detail and length), but don’t stretch to out-of-date projects that may not reflect your current skill set. Trust in your resume to speak to the extent of your experience and let your portfolio be a spotlight for more current work. As a rule of thumb, consider replacing work on your portfolio that’s older than 5 years. Having projects that are relevant to the space you’re applying/interviewing for is always a bonus, but at MongoDB, we hire design team members from all types of backgrounds and value different perspectives. Details and aesthetics count. Your portfolio is a representation of yourself, your work, organizational skills, and more. Even if you keep it simple, creating a portfolio is a time consuming process that requires a ton of energy and thought. We recommend including high resolution images, and exporting animations to gifs or videos, proofreading and utilizing spell check. This is a great chance to showcase your strengths, attention to detail, and an opportunity to share parts of your personality! Continuing to refine your visual design skills? Try using Dribbble and other communities as a resource. Drawing inspiration from other designers on the side is a great way to learn. Tell a compelling story and be consistent with your format. Once you choose a layout and format for your portfolio, be consistent across all your projects. Don’t just show screenshots, share the details that matter most in your process and tell a compelling narrative about the end-to-end journey. We love the messy sketches, whiteboarding, wireframes, and everything in between! It’s okay if things didn’t go as planned; we also want to hear about what you learned and how you grew from the experience. Focus on the user. We are all about the users at MongoDB, and our Product Design teams are user advocates across the organization. Hearing about how user problems are solved through collaboration, research, testing, design, and strategy is what we’re passionate about. Know your audience and the role you’re applying for. Making your portfolio easily readable and starting with projects most relevant to your career interests and goals will really make it stand out. For longer or more complex pieces, try to bold the most important parts to quickly grasp your audience’s attention. Pro tip: We recommend including your portfolio and password when applying to a role. We understand that it’s important to protect any sensitive work, however, providing quick access could give you the edge in this fast-paced job market! Each person that joins our team adds something unique and special, changing the team for the better. Learn more about our Product Design team in this two-part series . If you’re passionate about technology and our Design team sounds like one you’d like to be a part of, we’d love to hear from you! Interested in pursuing a career in design at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!
The Power of Embracing Differences: My Journey to MongoDB
September 14th, 2021 marked my first full year at MongoDB, and what a year it’s been. A bit about me Hi, I’m Cara! I’m a Team Lead, Executive Assistant, specifically for Tech & Product. I’m based out of our NYC office and live in Jersey City with my girlfriend and our three cats. At MongoDB, I support our amazing Chief Product Officer and also lead a team of awesome Administrative Assistants (AAs) and Executive Assistants (EAs) within Tech & Product. We are hiring like crazy, too, and I can’t say enough great things about our team. Beyond my already rewarding and challenging role as a Team Lead, I also get to work on other meaningful projects while growing my core career. I’m incredibly grateful and humbled to be a Global Lead for two of MongoDB’s affinity groups (known as employee resource groups at some companies) alongside some of the best, most passionate people I’ve ever met: Queeries - A closed group and safe space for people who personally identify within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. The Queer Collective - An open group for the LGBTQIA+ community as well as our amazing allies (all are welcome!) to exchange thoughts, ideas, and learn and grow from each other. As we like to say, the future is inclusive! Finding my voice and professional purpose The funny thing is, I didn’t know what an “affinity group” or “employee resource group” was for most of my career. I used to work in a more conservative corporate environment and spent over a decade in the food/hospitality industry with people whose views were wildly different from mine. One of my bosses always asked me if I had a boyfriend or when I was going to settle down with a nice guy. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but it was a discomfort I got used to. How sad is that? The crazy thing was, it didn’t feel sad or weird or anything at the time. I just thought I had to stay hidden at work. That’s what you did. It wasn’t “professional” to be gay. The first time I saw a queer coworker was when I had my first real introduction to the tech start-up environment. He was so vibrantly open about who he was, and I was in awe of him. I stayed quiet for my first few months there and studied people’s reactions, interactions, and how they responded when he would say things that I never thought could be said in an office. They weren’t bad things by any means, but they were topics about being queer that I watched everyone embrace. Then, it slipped out during lunch one day. I thought maybe I could casually mention going on a date so it would be less weird, but everyone was super surprised. I get told I “look straight” a lot, which I’ve always found irritating. What does that even mean? Do I need to be masculine-presenting to be gay? Me (right) and my girlfriend From there, I moved on to work at Zocdoc, which truly opened my eyes to affinity groups, workplace queer communities, and how far they expand. It was the first place I worked that even had an affinity group. I befriended two amazing humans there who were the founders of ZocPride, which represented Zocdoc’s queer community. We got to talking and they told me they only planned something for Pride month. They’re not planners, they actually hate planning, but they didn’t want the group to die. So I said, “Good news. Hi, I’m Cara. I’m super queer and I love to plan things!” We chuckled and then I immediately started planning and researching what I could do with this awesome gift I was just given. Since we had no D&I team and a very limited budget, I worked to find other companies to partner with as well as vendors who would be open to sponsoring events for us. Before I knew it, we were partnering with Out in Tech to host an external panel discussion about queer access to healthcare. We hosted it on Coming Out Day and had about 300 guests. From there, things really took off. We did a “spread the love” campaign for Valentine’s Day, had hugely successful fundraisers for NYC’s AIDS Walk, and then, you guessed it, went crazy for Pride. I proudly introduced the art of drag to Zocdoc and started their annual Drag Bingo Pride event. We also sponsored and had a booth at the Lesbians Who Tech Summit the year that Hilary Clinton came to speak. It was unbelievable. My MongoDB journey After receiving incredible offers to work at a few more companies, unexpectedly experiencing workplace discrimination, and reflecting on what I want and need to be happy and thrive in a work environment, I found myself at MongoDB. One of my amazing colleagues from Zocdoc was working here and we were catching up. I heard the details about the Company and role and thought it sounded like a great fit! I love working in tech, but specifically with Product & Tech teams. They’re brilliant, passionate, quirky personalities that vibe well with mine and in my experience, are hyper-focused on having fun and building a positive culture. Because of my previous experiences, I knew exactly what I was looking for. I asked questions that could be uncomfortable to some, as far as the company’s commitment to Diversity & Inclusion, what it means to them personally, and how they practice what they preach. I didn’t want any more wooden nickels. The interview process was amazing. Everyone was super responsive, informative, and helpful and didn’t hesitate to answer any of my hard-hitting questions. Interviews are a two-way street, and I was immediately put at ease when I realized that MongoDB was the place for me. My recruiter started telling me about our growing D&I team, our affinity groups, and how involved and supportive the leadership team is. Then I got to interview with my manager, our Chief Product Officer, who I clicked with instantly. I knew right away that I wanted to work with him. In my experience, I haven't always been lucky with great bosses. I’ve been ignored, lied to, dismissed, looked over, and simply not appreciated. I don’t feel that way here. I feel heard and respected, and that speaks volumes in itself. I’m often encouraged to take time for myself. I had some personal health issues at the beginning of the year. I was anxious to take time off because I was still so new, but the outpour of support and understanding I received blew my mind. That’s when I knew I had really found my new home. When I joined MongoDB last year, The Queer Collective was still a new group, only three months old at that point, and I was able to join at a very exciting time when there was lots of opportunity and momentum. We officially launched the group alongside the communication of launching our first-ever celebration of (inter)national Coming Out Day . We celebrated again this year and have decided that it will be a company-wide annual tradition. Last year, four of our leads (myself included) shared their coming out stories, and we didn’t realize how much of an impact it made until feedback started to trickle in. We were told that some employees joined MongoDB after reading our stories and some even felt comfortable coming out of the closet and stepping into their own light. If that’s not rewarding, I don’t know what is. This year, more employees shared their stories , and we partnered with our Benefits team to host an internal panel discussion. October is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we thought it would be the perfect time to talk through and bring awareness to the mental health journey that comes along with coming out and embracing your true, authentic self. We will also be planning a full week of impactful programming for Trans Awareness Week so that we can continue to amplify the voices in the Trans Community while encouraging continued education. This past July, I also spoke at MongoDB.live (formerly known as MongoDB World) with my Queer Collective co-lead and dear friend Seán Carroll about Allyship and how to upgrade to an active accomplice. It explored what accountability and support look like and how we can all improve our support of the LGBTQIA+ community. The feedback was amazing, and I can’t wait to evolve our topic and content and hopefully speak in person next year! I also have the pleasure of working closely with our incredible D&I team on impactful initiatives, such as helping with large external events and partnerships like the Lesbians Who Tech Summit, where we secured a top-tier sponsorship at the largest queer tech event in the world! I’ve also been part of meaningful conversations, such as expanding gender and identity options and helping to evolve and plan for benefits that help and impact the Queer community. The list goes on, really. I frequently sync with our D&I team and I’m so grateful to work somewhere that truly invests in fostering an inclusive and equitable work environment. Why MongoDB is the place for me I’ve worked in a lot of different industries, with people from every level and walk of life, and now I feel as though I’m where I was meant to be. MongoDB’s values truly align with my own, and this is the first company that I’ve seen make an actual effort to align their company objectives and goals with their values. Here’s how I live some of our MongoDB values every day: I proudly embrace the power of everyone’s differences (mine included). We evolve and move forward with a magical combination of varied backgrounds, interests, and ideas. Why bother doing anything if you don’t plan to make it matter ? I stand behind everything I work on and am proud of the meaningful projects and impacts I’ve seen first-hand so far. I’ve always been a big idea kind of human - Think Big, Go Far - I thrive on creativity, ambition, and being a relentless dreamer. When I joined, I received a postcard from our CEO. Part of it said, “We want your time here to become a real inflection point in your professional career”, and I can wholeheartedly say after just my first year, it already is. I’m constantly learning and growing at MongoDB. From management training to webinars to endless learning and development resources, and beyond. These were things I had been requesting, asking, and looking for at previous companies. They were things promised to me “eventually”, but they never came. Here I was in my first week at MongoDB, given them without asking. This is a company that truly cares about its employees’ development and success. I’ve hired (and am growing) an awesome team of amazing humans who I’m so proud to work alongside every day. Any job can be great, but the people make it extra special. The EA team at MongoDB is like no other, and I can’t wait to see its continued growth and evolution. Helping to build and evolve a world-class EA org is incredibly exciting and rewarding, and I love being a part of it. I love that I can be fully myself at work and am given the opportunity to make an impact in so many ways. I can’t wait to see what the future will bring. It’s been an unbelievable experience and journey so far! 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!
Five Tips for Writing Your Marketing Resume
We are always looking for talented and passionate marketers to join our team at MongoDB, and we want to set you up for success starting at the first step in our recruiting process. No matter how many positions you’ve applied for in the past, it’s always a good idea to refresh your resume for each application. If you’re interested in applying to our Marketing team, take a look at my tips for writing an impactful resume. Length and formatting There are some resume formatting tips that you may already know, but I think it’s great to start with the basics. I recommend keeping your resume to two pages or less and breaking it into sub-sections. The top of your resume should have your name, contact details (phone number and email address), and a link to your LinkedIn profile. Next, I recommend including a short summary of you and your experience. For marketing roles, it’s always great to get some insight into the companies and teams you have worked with, projects you have taken part in or led, and some of the main skills you feel you could bring to MongoDB. Next should be your experience. I always advise candidates to break their experience section into three different parts: Company and role: Provide a brief description of the company you previously worked at and a high-level overview of your role there. Responsibilities: Utilize bullet points to provide more detail about the main responsibilities you held while working there. Highlights and achievements: I recommend showcasing some of the main achievements you have had while working in each role. This helps provide a clear picture of your skills and capabilities. At the bottom of your resume, list your highest level of education achieved and any degrees you hold. You may also consider including additional information such as charity or volunteer work you’ve done, other activities you participate in, or hobbies and interests. While we are interested in your professional experience, we’re also interested in learning about you as a person! Highlights and achievements During the recruiting process at MongoDB, we want to learn as much as we can about you. Your resume is your chance to highlight all the great things you’ve done in your career. To reiterate the above, I recommend adding a section under each role you’ve held to list some of your top achievements. This will help show us where your strengths are and how you could impact the Marketing organization at MongoDB. Achievements could be marketing events you held and the impact they had on the organization or campaigns you ran that had a great return on investment. Any internal awards or recognitions you received would be great to add here, too. Numbers, stats, tools, and links As you are listing your highlights and achievements, I’d like to mention that adding numbers and statistics can really go a long way in making your resume stand out. For example, maybe you ran a campaign that led to an uptick in sales leads and conversions. Consider providing the data to showcase this. Visual aids like charts and graphs are also a great addition. If you have some examples of campaigns, webpages, or events you’ve managed, consider adding links to them within your resume. Resumes that are both qualitative and quantitative have the greatest impact and are quickly noticed. Listing some of the marketing tools you have used is also helpful for the recruiter and hiring manager to understand your experience with marketing technology. Under each role, I’d recommend adding a list of the tools you used and your proficiency with them. At MongoDB we use tools such as Salesforce, Tableau, Eliqua, and Splash, so if you’ve had experience with any of those, be sure to highlight it! People management If you are applying for a people management role, I recommend highlighting the mentoring and coaching experience you gained through your management experience. It is also helpful for potential hiring managers to understand how many direct reports you had in previous roles and the seniority level of these direct reports. Attention to detail As a recruiter, I've seen spelling and grammar mistakes on resumes at all levels and from all sectors. We are only human at the end of the day, but when applying for roles in areas such as marketing where attention to detail is key to success, it’s best to give your resume a second (or even third) look. Ensuring that your resume is well-written, grammatically correct, and formatted in an easily readable way will really make it stand out. I hope to see your resume in our applicant tracking system soon! Interested in pursuing a career in marketing at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!
Preparing for Your Consulting Engineer Interview at MongoDB
Are you a software professional who isn't always just about the software? Do you write code, but just as often get an equally strong sense of accomplishment by configuring a tricky but vital part of the operating system or DBMS? Do you enjoy working with a variety of computer professionals from SysAdmins to Devs to CTOs? Do you feel that special spark from knowing there's so much more to learn about the technology you eat, sleep, and breathe, and that you might never learn every last bit of it, but it'll be a heck of a ride trying to? Are data management and consulting two things you enjoy doing more than anything else? We are always on the lookout for such professionals. Those who seek the challenge. Those who can immerse themselves in every cubic millimeter of a particular stack in their quest to find “the answer”. Those who find fulfillment in helping MongoDB's customers realize every bit of potential that our products can give them. MongoDB Professional Services provides best-of-breed expertise and experience for all of our products to help our customers and community users get the most out of them. This can involve one or more of: Application Lifecycle Expertise, providing both strategic and tactical consulting from the conception to delivery to post-delivery phases of your application lifecycle Dedicated time with a dedicated MongoDB technical expert, with all of the resources of the company and the community at their disposal Public and Private Training for DBAs, DevOps Engineers, Developers, and Data Scientists Migrating customer workloads to MongoDB in Public Clouds And on the front lines is the Consulting Engineer (CE). The Jack-of-all-trades of all things MongoDB who works directly with our customers on a daily basis. What follows is a guide for those looking to join MongoDB Professional Services. We have Consulting Engineer positions available at a variety of levels, and this guidance should help make for the best possible interview experience! Do you have what we're looking for? Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to know how to use MongoDB. Trust me, that was my situation when I interviewed with MongoDB. Don't get us wrong, it is a definite “plus” to have some experience or be an expert, but no experience with MongoDB isn't a deal-breaker. It also isn't an absolute requirement to have been a Consulting Engineer before (I hadn't been), but you do need the skills and qualities that can be made into a successful CE. We look for bright, motivated people who can learn quickly, pivot effortlessly, and adapt relentlessly to a myriad of challenges and situations. People who rise up to technical challenges in pursuit of our customers' needs. We are mostly focused on customers after the sale, although we do work in tandem at times with our Account Teams. A MongoDB Consulting Engineer is well-versed in modern software stacks, database technologies, software development, deployment, and day-to-day operations. They utilize MongoDB Best Practices, deliver MongoDB Technical Training, and work with both customer Dev and Ops teams to ensure successful deployments of MongoDB-based software solutions. They are resourceful, adaptable, always willing to learn, and (if and when we get back to it) comfortable travelling a majority of the time. They enjoy interacting with software professionals on a daily basis. They enjoy representing MongoDB and its products and technologies. They enjoy real-world technical challenges. Do we have what you're looking for? The very first step in your journey is to check the Customer Engineering careers page for open Consulting Engineer positions. If one or more look like a potential fit, we encourage you to apply! As an organization, MongoDB Professional Services strives to be one of the best in the industry. We adhere to very high standards, which translates to maximum benefit to our customers. We are always learning from each other and learning about our new products and technologies as they come down the pipeline. We work hard, we have a lot of fun, and we make a difference. Because a Consulting Engineer must possess a broad skill set, there is significant potential for career growth within the organization. People management is one route, or you might decide you'll always prefer to 'stay technical' - in the latter case, consider a development path that could land you a coveted MongoDB Distinguished Engineer position some day. Alternatively, you might at some point determine that you wish to move into other Professional Services roles with other emphases, such as: Tool and Framework Development for our customers, as well as your fellow Consulting Engineers Curriculum Development, for internal or external Training offerings Engagement Management, where you working more closely with Account Teams to present Professional Services' value proposition to potential and current customers Project Management You are given extensive freedom as a MongoDB Consulting Engineer. We give you the freedom to explore, the freedom to create, the freedom to learn, and the freedom to contribute to the organization and our customers in your unique way. Do you aspire to give a presentation at a MongoDB.local or at MongoDB World? Perhaps the written word is your thing, and you'd like to try your hand at blogging for MongoDB and Professional Services (like I'm doing right here!). Or maybe you just like to develop new and interesting tools for other MongoDB users through the MongoDB Community. All of those and more are possible. Is that what you're looking for? As a company, MongoDB aims to be recognized as a leader in how we value and look after our employees, as well as our customers. Want to learn more? Check out our Life At MongoDB blog posts. Interview step one: speaking with a recruiter Once you've applied for a Consulting Engineer position, a Recruiter will review your resume and determine if they think your skills and experience could be a good fit for the role. If so, they’ll reach out to you to get to know you better and to discuss your qualifications for the particular position, your experience in the industry to date, and what you are looking for in a position with MongoDB. The more you can reflect on your experience and expertise and then show its applicability to what we're looking for, the better. Think about what you are wanting in a career at MongoDB as a Consulting Engineer and how we may be able to make that happen together. A good job fit is, after all, a two-way street. Interview step two: speaking with the hiring manager If the Recruiter confirms that you are a potential fit for Professional Services, you will be scheduled for some time with the Hiring Manager. Give some thought to the following: What do you want out of your next job? What are you looking for in a company and a manager? Why do you feel, at this point, that you are an excellent fit for this position? Pick some example experiences/situations from your past that may be relevant to this position, and be prepared to discuss them. The manager will likely share more about the overall and day-to-day expectations of the job. They will also ask if you have additional questions that they can answer to give you a fuller picture. Our goal is to give you a proper overview of the team (and its culture), Professional Services, and what it's like working at MongoDB. Interview step three: speaking with MongoDB Consulting Engineers In this phase, you will have a handful of one-hour interviews with established MongoDB Consulting Engineers. Each interview covers one or more of the following: Database expertise (Relational and non-Relational) Software development experience and familiarity Problem solving expertise and approach(es) Consulting experience/expertise Rigors of and requirements for daily customer interaction Now: Working with customers remotely (Potentially) In the future: Business travel a majority of the time (note: on hold at present due to COVID) "Soft skills" needed to be a successful MongoDB Consulting Engineer Report writing skills Verbal communication skills (1-on-1 and to groups) Dealing with various customer personalities and situations Comfort talking to customer individual contributors, management, and business stakeholders No, we do not expect you to code an O(n) sorting algorithm on a whiteboard while we wait. Nor do we expect you to install and configure a database server on the fly from a terminal window. That being said, if those sorts of things intrigue you, well…. points for that. What we will do is dig into how you attack problems, how you work with individuals and groups to find solutions, and how you make use of available resources and think outside the box when required. We also ask questions to see how quickly you can absorb new information and how quickly you can adapt to rapidly changing situations. Interview step four: speaking with the PS Director The last stage in the interview process is a chat (usually via video conference) with the Professional Services (PS) Director for that region. This can give you a slightly different perspective of the organization and the role itself, as well as added visibility into our business and company culture. The good news is that this will not be as technical as the interviews above. Before this discussion, consider what you've discussed so far in the interview process, and what other aspects of the role you have further questions about. I will say that when I interviewed back in the day, I sat down with our newly-hired head of Professional Services and asked him "where do you see the organization in two to three years?". His answer was a significant piece of why I accepted MongoDB's offer, so don't be afraid to ask what's really on your mind! Questions? I love to make connections between outstanding individual contributors and MongoDB Professional Services, so if you have any questions about this process or the jobs, feel free to drop me a line. If you’d like to hear more about my experience as a Principal Consulting Engineer, listen to this episode of The MongoDB Podcast. You can find me on LinkedIn, or by writing to me at eric.reid@mongodb.com . Good luck! Interested in pursuing a career as a Consulting Engineer at MongoDB? We have several open roles on our teams across the globe and would love for you to transform your career with us!
Sales Development Series: Meet the North America Sales 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 North America inbound team, which works with customers all over North, Central, and South America. Hear from Manager Ravelle Mantoura and a few Sales Development Representatives about the SDR role, team culture, and how they’re looking to grow their careers at MongoDB. Check out the rest of our Sales Development series here . Ravelle Mantoura , Regional Sales Development Manager for North America As part of the inbound Sales Development team, there is an enormous opportunity for growth as you develop many skills in the Sales Development Representative role. Due to the nature of inbound, we tend to have a lot of conversations with customers who are further along their MongoDB journey than others. This means you will have a lot of customers asking questions about the product and features to understand what solution makes the most sense for them. Because of this, you will get well acquainted with the product and develop strong technical know-how around MongoDB offerings. Additionally, you will develop skills to understand how companies of all sizes purchase software. You’ll also have the opportunity to work with dozens of different Account Executives across the company, understand their business flow, their methods, and learn more about their organization -- it’s a great way to build relationships as you decide which path to take. Lastly, due to your customer calls, you will gain a deep understanding of our sales methodology very quickly which will prepare you well for the next role. All of this is incredibly valuable as you look to grow your career and decide which path makes the most sense for you (Enterprise or Corporate). To be on the inbound team means to work alongside marketing closely, understand the marketing to sales funnel, how data impacts results, and how to use the data you are given to have an impactful conversation with a potential customer. You will not be dedicated to one team or region but the entirety of North or Latin America, giving you the opportunity to network, build strong relationships with dozens of different stakeholders, and master your communication and relationship-building skills. We have a few different types of roles on the inbound team, so the typical day-to-day work can vary. For some, a daily structure will be around assisting customers through the live Sales Chat on our website, answering “contact us” forms, or responding to customer calls. This is a fast-paced role where you will help dozens of customers a week who are interested in speaking to sales. We typically schedule a meeting to understand the customer’s project and needs, so a large chunk of your week will be having live video conversations with customers. For the other roles on the team, we have individuals who respond to customers who have engaged with our marketing content. This can be anything from downloading the Enterprise Edition of our database to attending a webinar put on by MongoDB. Reps will reach out via phone, email, and LinkedIn to establish a connection and have a conversation around the potential customer’s interest. Lastly, we just launched a new strategic role on the team where reps will work on Enterprise accounts deemed with a high propensity for growth by marketing. The day-to-day in this role will focus on building connections within the entire account and understanding how the company can potentially leverage MongoDB in their current applications. This role is more strategic so there will be a heavier focus on building out messaging and strategy for approaching the account. The day-to-day in this role will be centered around gathering intel on the account, creating an action plan on outreach, and setting up live conversations with the customers you make contact with. Regardless of what role you’re in on our inbound team, you’ll have weekly, monthly, and quarterly enablement, training, and coaching sessions to set you up for success in your next career step. There are so many things that I love about our inbound Sales Development team. First, I enjoy being able to coach and develop my reps and seeing their growth throughout their tenure as they pursue a sales role at MongoDB. Second, getting the opportunity to learn about companies of all sizes and hear about the cool projects they are working on. Recently, one of my reps had the opportunity to meet with an architect from a popular digital music platform from the ’90s who wanted to completely re-platform their services to capture new market share. Another rep met with the CTO of an AI company where they use robots to track body motion throughout warehouses. Some really cool stuff! Lastly, being part of inbound and handling customers all across North, Central, and South America who are on different parts of the MongoDB journey makes every day exciting! Luiza Ozório , Sales Development Representative When I was looking for new career opportunities, I researched three points that I consider extremely important when assessing the job market: consistent company growth, people and culture, and training and growth possibilities. MongoDB excelled on all these points and when evaluating the two offers I received, I chose to join MongoDB. The Sales Development team culture is very collaborative. We are all on the journey of constant learning, so we often do teach backs on topics that contribute to our daily routines. We also share best practices and anything else that can help other team members develop. There is a culture of learning and development at MongoDB, with well-defined paths for career growth and open feedback which is an exciting working environment to be in. In terms of how to succeed, I don't think there is a specific formula that makes someone successful, but I believe in the importance of being consistent, disciplined, following the sales process, and, above all, communicating with stakeholders in a clear and effective way. Being part of a company that is constantly growing gives us the opportunity to build together and accelerate the company's development even further. I believe in the excellence of what MongoDB offers and I see that we really help our customers develop and scale their businesses. This feeling of being able to help is what energizes me! Brandon Bell , Sr. Sales Development Representative I chose MongoDB because the sales training is second to none. From the first interview, it was clear that MongoDB heavily invests in its people. I felt extremely welcomed and I could tell that MongoDB was a collaborative organization. I spent my first few weeks getting to meet others throughout the organization and going through our Sales Bootcamp which is a training program that’s designed to equip new hires with a strong technology and sales foundation before fully ramping into their role. MongoDB is uniquely positioned in the market to be the foundation for modern applications. It’s an incredible opportunity to be on the ground floor of so many digital transformation efforts. MongoDB is the foundation of so many applications that solve real-world problems! It's incredibly exciting getting to work with various customers with a wide variety of use cases like IoT, Machine Learning, and Blockchain technologies. What will make you successful is being intellectually curious and having a willingness to learn. Our industry and customers' needs are constantly evolving and being genuinely interested in keeping up with these changes is key. At MongoDB, your success is directly correlated with your ability to implement feedback and learn from your mistakes. Coming to the role with an open mind and an appetite to learn is one of the best things you can do as an SDR at MongoDB. My next step is going to be joining our Cloud team as a Cloud Account Executive. In this role, I will get the opportunity to support a lot of early-stage companies as they look to grow and launch new applications. In the long-term, I aspire to become an Enterprise Account Executive where I will get the opportunity to partner with some of the largest companies in the U.S. as they continue to innovate and create applications that will impact millions of people. I feel so fortunate to have joined a sales team that truly cares about everyone's success. Angel Rivera-Vega , Sales Development Representative One of my best friends was working at MongoDB and suggested that I apply to the Sales team based on the continuous growth that he experienced within the company. I had already been developing my tech sales career at other companies, and I knew a little bit about MongoDB through NodeJS and Javascript courses that I took back in 2017. I applied, and here I am! My onboarding experience with MongoDB was gold. I was blessed with a team that consistently helped me through the onboarding process. They always supported me when I needed it, and they consistently coached me on the path to success here in MongoDB. I have to admit that my journey through MongoDB’s Sales Bootcamp was the best sales training process in my professional career. Something that makes me feel very excited about my role is that I have the opportunity to help multiple entrepreneurial initiatives become a reality. I also enjoy promoting solutions to challenges that help enterprises in the long run. It feels great to interact with different companies across the globe and learn about different cultures. In my opinion, there are two critical elements for an SDR’s success. The first one is their mindset. The most successful SDRs are capable of continuously finding opportunities in which MongoDB will fit companies' initiatives. The second is that they are willing to learn and improve consistently. They are curious, test new ideas, and continuously improve on their execution. As I continue to progress my career at MongoDB, I see myself as a Cloud Account Executive in my next role. I like the idea of helping companies embrace cloud technologies such as MongoDB Atlas. In today’s world, all modern applications are empowered with data. To make good use of data, all modern applications need to use cloud technologies that will operate independently. These technologies will help companies to boost development productivity, reduce complexity, and facilitate innovation. What makes MongoDB exciting and unique is to see how much the company is growing year over year and know that our work is contributing to this continuous success. MongoDB is full of incredibly talented and capable people, and I always learn something new from them. 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!
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!