MongoDB Career Growth & Development

What makes your current role a dream job? What do you get to do that you didn’t at other companies? What perks/value-add do you see as the most beneficial?

My role is a mix of managing people, including being responsible for their growth, development and performance, and leading technical projects, such as writing designs, code and tests. Time spent on technical work keeps me attuned not only to what’s ailing our customers but also to the challenges of fixing those things. In turn, I can better support my reports, empathizing with them about the difficulty of their work while also helping them through technical problems. I had been exclusively a people manager for a while and an engineer before that, and I was eager to mix people and technology every day, which isn’t a role that every company offers. Luckily for me, MongoDB does!

What do you think helped you land the job? Were you able to bring any special expertise or project experience that MongoDB found valuable?

I’ve been fascinated by databases since I was a university student, and I spent a lot of my free time learning about them, so in addition to being enthusiastic about working in this space, I had some relevant technical experience. I had worked on large enterprise systems — both legacy and greenfield — in fintech and finance and had even used MongoDB in production, so I was familiar with enterprise needs like security, durability, availability and performance.

What do you think helps engineers move up quickly or be the top pick for a competitive employer? What should engineers seek out if they hope to move up or be hired by their “dream” company?

I think that genuine excitement about the role that you want or the role that you’re in plays a large part in your success. If you’re looking for your “dream” company, you have to start with what interests you because that’s what’s exciting, and a good indicator of that is what you do in your spare time. Once you identify your “dream” company, you need to find a role there that fits your skills and experience. The best indicator of a match is that you have experience doing the work required in the role. If you’re looking for your first job or you are changing fields, spending your free time practicing the role is another strong signal that you could meet your “dream” company’s needs.

What new skill or role did you want to learn? Why was this important to you?
Working with AI and building my technical expertise was critical for my next role. I had spent over two and a half years working as a consulting engineer at MongoDB when the opportunity to join our new application modernization team arose. As I transitioned into an application delivery consultant role on the team, I set out to grow my technical leadership skills by combining hands-on engineering with innovation in generative AI. Developing expertise in applying AI to real-world software delivery challenges was important not only to stay ahead of industry trends but to deliver differentiated, future-proof solutions for enterprise-scale modernization. I’ve continued to broaden my experience at the intersection of architecture, delivery and client strategy.

How did your employer help support this time of learning and professional development?
MongoDB provided an environment where I could immediately take ownership of a high-visibility, cross-functional project as the technical lead, partnering with principal engineers and client executives on complex, meaningful challenges. I had leadership support to experiment with AI as we prototyped solutions for real-world client needs. Through collaboration with our engineering and product teams, I gained exposure to cutting-edge tools like LangChain and OpenAI APIs to accelerate application migration. Beyond that, I had access to technical enablement, mentorship and the autonomy to drive both strategy and delivery. This combination of trust, innovation and cross-team collaboration helped me grow rapidly as a technical leader in the AI space.

What was the outcome of this experience? How did it impact your future growth in your profession?
This experience accelerated my trajectory as a strategic technical leader at MongoDB. I now lead a team modernizing critical enterprise applications, guiding architecture, integrating AI and delivering outcomes that strengthen client trust and long-term investment in MongoDB. I’ve grown into a role where I not only engineer solutions but drive innovation, manage ambiguity and influence outcomes at scale. This foundation has opened doors to future leadership roles where AI fluency, technical strategy and stakeholder partnership are essential.

How do you structure mentorship and technical learning for engineers?

I built my career at MongoDB over the past nine years, from intern to individual contributor and now as an engineering manager. I learned early on that the most effective way to gain experience and grow as an engineer is “learning through doing” and viewing everything as an opportunity. I offered to do the unglamorous, ambiguous work and tried my hardest. I made plenty of mistakes, but I learned from them and maintained a positive attitude. These hands-on experiences are how we learn, grow, and succeed at MongoDB. This is why I work hard to give my team opportunities to work on challenging, impactful projects in an environment where they can safely learn from their mistakes. This culture of psychological safety is paramount. 

Mentorship is ongoing at MongoDB, and it starts with regular one-on-ones with team members. These meetings are not simply status updates; they’re opportunities to share feedback, coach reports through difficult decisions, and support them with learning and growth opportunities. Our engineers are also encouraged to seek mentors from across the organization and meet with peers to discuss common challenges. 

What internal mobility or upskilling programs have you launched recently?

Upskilling happens on a daily basis at MongoDB, not through one-off programs or initiatives. On my team, it’s typically through the projects that we work on. Junior engineers are given ownership of projects with increasingly wide scope and complexity, paired with more senior mentors, and supported when faced with difficult decisions. As part of each engineer’s formal development plan, I pay close attention to opportunities they need for their development and work as hard as I can to give them those opportunities.

For more senior levels, like staff engineers, team members are given ownership of large portions of the product or features beyond just implementation. They become responsible for our roadmap and provide direct input into planning, taking a step beyond simply building features and being highly trusted engineers.

This ongoing focus on upskilling and development is embedded in the engineering culture at MongoDB. It’s truly a place where you’ll be pushed to learn and grow consistently, and it’s never been a more exciting time as our engineering team builds MongoDB into the go-to data platform for production AI applications.

How do you identify and support future technical leaders?

Over the past nine years, I’ve grown into an engineering leader role at MongoDB. Much of what I’ve learned about being a leader and supporting leaders I have learned here.

Effective leaders must be able to give clear, actionable feedback. This isn’t just the responsibility of managers. Individual contributors must be able to give feedback to peers. Giving feedback rarely comes naturally to people. I spent years developing this skill myself, and I still am.

Early on, I was given the opportunity to mentor interns. I had no challenges with the technical mentorship, but I struggled to communicate critical feedback. Luckily, our internship program held workshops for mentors to learn and practice these feedback-giving skills, giving me the confidence to have some difficult conversations and the opportunity to learn in the process. Now as a manager, I encourage my own team members to mentor interns in order to build their leadership skills, coaching them along the way.

I didn’t start my job knowing how to do any of this. I learned it all at MongoDB through leadership development programs, mentorship and opportunities to broaden my skills and experience.