June 2021 Summaries

MongoDB's Queer Collective is an employee-led affinity group dedicated to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies within the company. Originating from a virtual Pride celebration in 2020, the group has grown to nearly 200 members globally, organizing various social, educational, and awareness events such as Pride Month programming, Transgender Awareness Week, and sponsorship of the Lesbians Who Tech Summit. The Queer Collective aims to promote LGBTQIA+ rights, provide networking opportunities, and encourage intersectional collaboration with other affinity groups at MongoDB to enhance inclusivity and equity across the organization. With executive sponsorship and plans to expand partnerships externally, the group is committed to amplifying its impact both within and beyond MongoDB.

MongoDB Atlas for Government is now available to US government agencies and educational institutions, providing a secure and modern database-as-a-service platform built specifically for their needs. The service has been approved as FedRAMP Ready, indicating its security capabilities have been vetted by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It allows for fast iteration and deployment of applications in AWS GovCloud (US) and AWS US East/West regions, with supported features including automated backups, private link, and federated authentication. Government customers can purchase Atlas for Government through AWS Marketplace or work directly with MongoDB, with pricing available upon request.

The MongoDB Flex Consulting team is growing rapidly, providing flexible engagement sizes and delivery models to help customers meet their goals. The team is looking for skilled individuals with a software engineering background and great communication skills to join as Consulting Engineers. The role offers extensive training, autonomy, and accountability, with support from leaders who teach, coach, enable, and show how to succeed. Team culture values collaboration, diversity of thought, and fun, creating an amazing camaraderie among team members despite remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Flex Consulting team is instrumental in helping customers succeed with MongoDB, providing a unique opportunity for growth and development.

Retailers must master the collection, analysis, and deployment of data to create personalized experiences across channels. This requires a data platform that prioritizes data privacy, agility, real-time data, and developer enablement. A flexible data model, such as MongoDB Atlas, can help retailers handle diverse data sources and evolve their applications quickly. By integrating data from disparate sources, retailers can streamline supply chains, improve inventory management, and enhance customer relationships. With the right technology, retailers can differentiate themselves digitally through personalized experiences, omnichannel interactions, and real-time data-driven insights.

FanPlay, a real money gaming platform, was co-founded by Pritesh Kumar and Bharat Gupta in 2020, with MongoDB serving as its database. The company's business model involves hosting influencer-led trivia games for fans and followers, who pay an entry fee to participate. With approximately 500 influencers on board and 20,000 active users daily from India, FanPlay has scaled significantly since its initial web app launch. Pritesh credits MongoDB's flexibility, community support, and documentation for enabling the company's fast execution and adaptability as a startup, particularly in handling large-scale user growth and scaling with minimal effort.

The Australian office of MongoDB is expanding, offering various job opportunities across different teams. The company culture emphasizes a tight-knit, small-company vibe while still providing the benefits and resources of a larger organization. Employees in Australia enjoy above-standard annual leave, comprehensive health insurance, and generous equity packages. The team culture is described as friendly, welcoming, and inclusive, with a strong focus on learning and development opportunities. Various teams within the Australian office, including Sales, Customer Success, Technical Services, and more, share their experiences and perspectives on working at MongoDB Australia.

You can now deploy and manage MongoDB Atlas directly from your AWS environment using the newly available MongoDB Atlas resource types on the CloudFormation Public Registry. This allows for more flexibility over deployment configurations, enabling users to better meet their cloud workflows. With this integration, developers can leverage cloud automation to reduce infrastructure provisioning and management pain, making it easier to launch and deploy application stacks with MongoDB Atlas directly from the AWS console.

Antler, a global early-stage venture capital firm, has partnered with MongoDB for Startups to support the growth of its portfolio companies. Antler enables exceptional people to build impactful technology startups by building complementary teams, supporting business model validation, and providing a global platform to scale their startups. The firm's founder, Björn Lindfors, shares his insights on entrepreneurship, building and managing new companies, and partnering with MongoDB. He emphasizes the importance of understanding that product isn't everything, focusing on engineering organization management, hiring, and team happiness. Björn has personally used MongoDB in his past companies and recommends it as a convenient and flexible database solution for startups. The partnership aims to deepen Antler's resources and mentorship for its founders, who are driven, curious, and passionate about changing the world. As the investment landscape evolves, Antler plans to innovate on its services to provide strategic value to its portfolio companies.

The payments industry is shifting towards data monetization, with corporate clients seeking value-add services and banks looking for ways to leverage their payment data. The push for ISO 20022 standardization is driving investment in modern database design and cloud technologies, enabling banks to offer improved services and differentiate themselves from competitors. Consolidated real-time data and single-view dashboards are the most sought-after payments services by finance executives, with over half relying on partners other than their lead bank for cash forecasting and cash visibility. Banks have opportunities to justify additional fees by offering value-added services through enriched third-party data sets and partnering with other organizations.

As a Consulting Engineer within MongoDB's Professional Services team, Paul-Emile Brotons works with customers to solve challenging problems and ensure their success with MongoDB. He is part of a worldwide team that provides training, database design, architecture design, code reviews, preproduction audits, setup, and health checks for customers at every stage of their MongoDB journey. The role offers opportunities to learn about various technologies, work on diverse projects, and interact with other teams such as Sales, Presales Engineering, and Product Engineering. Brotons' experience highlights the importance of good communication, problem-solving skills, and continuous learning in a Consulting Engineer role, making it an attractive opportunity for individuals with technical backgrounds who enjoy solving complex problems.

Vectorly is a software development kit (SDK) that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to upscale and enhance video in real time on users' devices, as they watch it. The company's mission is to provide a technology that streams low-resolution video content and watches it in high definition, allowing users to access online learning resources despite limited internet bandwidth. Vectorly has 100 AI models on its server, which are used for various purposes such as AI upscaling, virtual background replacement, and more. The SDK allows companies to integrate the AI-powered technology into their video applications, with a focus on performance and frame rate to avoid overloading low-end devices. Vectorly's tech stack consists of JavaScript, WebGL, and MongoDB, which is used to track and store event data and basic metadata. Sam Bhattacharyya, the founder of Vectorly, chose MongoDB due to its intuitive nature and the fact that it uses JSON notation for database storage, making it a great fit for his JavaScript-based project.

The Phable app has been created to address chronic diseases in India by providing a robust system for treatment and diagnosis. The app, which uses MongoDB as its database, allows doctors to communicate more effectively with patients, track their progress, and provide personalized recommendations. With the rise of COVID-19, Phable's growth has accelerated, and it has released new features such as video consultations quickly. The company uses a MEAN/MERN stack with MongoDB Atlas for clustering and backup capabilities, which provides a secure and scalable solution for its growing user base.

MongoDB's Sales Academy is an accelerator program designed to prepare individuals for a career in sales at the company. The academy focuses on two core pillars: technical knowledge of MongoDB technology and sales excellence, providing reps with a strong foundation in both areas. Through various development programs, including Compass Week, Sales Bootcamp, and Marco Polo, reps learn how to generate and run effective discovery conversations, qualify opportunities for MongoDB, and work through various training programs to bolster their skills. The program is designed to help new hires incrementally grow their impact and widen their skill set over a career-transforming first year at MongoDB. Graduates of the Sales Academy join the Sales Development team as either an Outbound or Inbound rep, with opportunities to progress through the organization and explore different roles within the company. MongoDB is a great place for someone to begin their sales career due to its growth-oriented environment, high level of investment in learning and development, and supportive culture.