Lacking creativity & highly mismanaged - Data Analytics Manager MongoDB Employee Review

1.0
May 3, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Engineering rigor Working at MDB was certainly a unique experience. I worked for approx. 1 .5 years as an IC. I am very grateful for the database fundamentals and SaaS business analytics experience, the exposure to industry, and the exceptional colleagues I met along my way. While you are covered for top notch salary and growing company "outlook", you can expect to work grueling hours, and often left with little to no free time (including weekends) to explore your learning & development, mentorship opportunities, and generally, with little more than lip-service given to workplace issues such as lack of support, long hours and hostile work environment. If you are in a money-making project on engineering or product, you are set for life. However, all said and done, I would certainly choose this experience again as I grew both personally and professionally (whether or not it was for the right reasons is another debate altogether). A huge added bonus is seeing your name on the shareholder list for people holding MDB stock!

Cons

With the aforementioned exceptional colleagues, one would imagine that life on a project should be a breeze. This would be the case if it wasn’t for MDB's astounding mismanagement and woeful lack of support for ICs not on engineering teams. TL;DR (1) Politics & short-term profiteering (2) Woeful lack of creativity (3) Bungling diversity efforts (1) Lacking creativity: If you do not work in engineering or product, you will not have any contributions that are appreciated by the company. (2) Politics: Leadership unable to make progressive tech investments nor able to manage talent in inclusive, constructive ways - busy profiting their own interests / positions of power / short-term gains. (3) Diversity: bungling efforts to recruit diverse candidates, and subsequently marginalizing the ones hired by not providing sufficient onboarding / support / seats-on-table, and utilizing them to score political points. MDB management personifies Murphy’s Law. This is certainly not due to consistent poor luck, but an inexplicable determination to pursue the irrational. A confounding example of this was when management simultaneously chose two teams to work on solving a real business challenge. The Directors of the two teams, in order to score points, spun out their own teams simultaneously, hired junior and experienced ICs. These ICs motivated by the oppty to work on important data problems were staffed on teams that were already in crisis (with woeful lack of budgets and infrastructure and hence in crisis, not mentioning the fact that more tenured employees found the work life balance on these teams to be always disregarded when questions were asked). Of course, when the money made was short of their astronomical goals (set in spite of crisis situation), it is blamed on the ICs. Remember, this is just one of too many examples. This ignorance of reality and pursuance of (what I can only guess is) their deeply misguided intuition is mind-boggling given that we live in an age of information. In fact, it is their blind, uninformed and sporadic decision-making that is the most consistent thing about management. If you happen to fall into disfavour- usually through no fault of the IC- management will go out of their way to make life a living hell for this individual at all times, as opposed to supporting their growth and addressing the problems. Similarly, the peer groups for ICs (who actually are lovely people) are rendered useless because of managerial standards that create conflicting goals between ICs and stakeholders. Overall, observing the MDB trajectory is like watching a tragicomedy. You honestly don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but rest assured that the blame will somehow lie with the employees and not management. All in all, if you can appreciate it for the exposure and withstand MDB's venomous form of management, I would strongly recommend the position.

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MongoDB Response
5y
Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback; we appreciate the positives you have highlighted and also respect your concerns and take them seriously. Our goal is to ensure that everyone has a positive experience at MongoDB. While we do have high expectations of all of our employees, we believe that to give our best at work and also live a well-balanced life we all need to take time off for rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. In addition to our flexible PTO policy and company holidays, we’ve also held several company-wide days off during the pandemic to support all employees in achieving a positive work-life blend. We are deeply committed to our company value “Embrace the Power of Differences” and creating a culture of inclusion by building a diverse workforce. It’s important to us that all employees feel a sense of belonging and are provided with the tools, resources, and support they need to succeed at MongoDB. Our Learning & Development program equips managers with training on managing inclusively and collaborating with different working and learning styles. We are also passionate about our value “Freedom to Create” and giving all of our employees the opportunity to own their ideas, take risks, and create what they want. Feedback is a key part of improving our organization. If you would be open to sharing more, please reach out to your People Partner or email Jess Katz, our Senior Employer Brand Manager, at jess.katz@mongodb.com.

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2.0
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CEO approval
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Pros

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