MongoDB

I work in the Cloud division (for all intents and purposes, Atlas), and I've been at the company for just over a year now.

In the immediate aftermath of joining, I probably would have given two or three stars. The people were wonderful, the code was bad, and the processes were agonizing. Even docs of minor import needed to go through an IC -> manager -> director -> VP -> EVP approval process (and this wasn't just the doc process; I needed to get VP approval to spend $4 once, which was actually kind of hilarious). The doc process could take months, and more or less kept a perpetual stranglehold on innovation. The product was largely stationary, technical debt was piling up, and the question for any project wasn't "Is this worth doing?", but rather "Can we squeak this around all of the process that would kill it?"

Two items changed last year. First of all, a new CTO. I have never even seen Jim in person, but they've done a dramatic job emphasizing impact and values, and de-glorifying process. Our users should expect more from us, and the focus is directly on that. There's still a fair bit of process, and it still takes longer than it should in many cases to get things out, but it's getting better, and I expect that to continue. Second, an influx of external talent. Quite a few very bright people have joined the team in the last year, and they've generally done quite a lot to improve technical quality and improve operational patterns. It's pretty clear that the technical aspects of the system are on the upswing.

I'm not giving it five stars yet, but if everything keeps going in the present direction, I will update it to five stars in 6-12 months. The people were great from the start, the tech is getting better, and the excessive process is decreasing.

Oh. Also, the work-life balance is really nice. You can be in-office, hybrid, or remote, and the only point where there's any difference is that you don't get a reserved desk in the office unless you're full-time (and there are plenty of flex desks anyway, if you want to come in). I also habitually work way too much, and both my manager and my director routinely encourage me to take time off, even when I'm not really thinking about it. There's really no pressure to just sit around and be a body in the office, which I really appreciate, and everyone clearly cares about everyone else's general health and wellbeing.

I think there are two real cons here.

The first one is just that all of the improvements above aren't happening as fast as I would like. But I understand that it takes time to make a shift like that in an organization, and I'm impressed by the execution thus far.

The latter one is my larger long-term concern. From what I can tell, the company largely seems to lack ambition (e.g., we seem very comfortable not meeting customer needs that are outside of our existing areas of expertise). There's an aura of "We'll just keep doing databases (now in the cloud), and revenue will keep going up," that makes me uneasy. I've mentioned that the Cloud department seems to be getting its eye back on the ball, but I have less faith that the company as a whole is managing to do so.

Defense never won the war. If we don't meet customer needs, just because they're outside of our current vertical, someone else will. They'll also be willing to build a nice database on top of it.