Meet Matt Kalan, Master Solutions & Enterprise Architect at MongoDB, who has worked at the company for over 7 years. The role of a Solution Architect (SA) at MongoDB is unique due to its focus on understanding customer goals and architecting solutions on top of MongoDB, rather than just demonstrating pre-made applications. This requires SAs to be broadly knowledgeable about various technologies and have a consistent focus on qualifying customers' situations before providing demos. In his 7+ years at MongoDB, Matt has made an impact by creating marketing content, running enablement sessions for the Central US teams, and sharing customer feedback with product teams. As a leader in the SA team, he has opportunities to build a career path, whether as an individual contributor or people manager, and is involved in quarterly leadership meetings and informal roundtables among the SA team. The relationship between Sales and SAs at MongoDB is collaborative, with mutual respect and a balancing dynamic between the two teams. Matt joined MongoDB 7 years ago due to its hot area of technology, Big Data, and has grown both personally and professionally in his role, with much more growth potential ahead.