Away From the Keyboard: Anaiya Raisinghani, MongoDB Developer Advocate

Welcome to our new article series focused on developers and what they do when they’re not building incredible things with code and data.

“Away From the Keyboard” features interviews with developers at MongoDB, discussing what they do, how they establish a healthy work-life balance, and their advice for others looking to create a more holistic approach to coding.

In our first article, Anaiya Raisinghani shares her day-to-day responsibilities as a Developer Advocate at MongoDB; how she uses nonrefundable workout classes and dinner reservations to help her step away from work; and her hack for making sure that when she logs off for the day, she stays logged off.

Q: What do you do at MongoDB?

Anaiya: I’m a developer advocate here at MongoDB on the Technical Content team! This means I get to build super fun MongoDB tutorials for the entire developer community.

I’m lucky where each day is different. If I’m researching a platform to build a tutorial, it can mean hours of research and reading up on documentation, whereas if I’m filming a YouTube video it means lots of time recording and editing.

Q: What does work-life balance look like for you?

Anaiya: A bad habit of mine is to get really caught up in a piece of content I’m creating and refuse to leave a certain spot until I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to do that day.

Because of this—and because I work mainly from home—if I can anticipate that I’m going to get caught up in a project, I create plans that force me to leave my desk. Some examples of these are non-refundable workout classes, drinks with friends after work (I hate being a flake), or even dinner reservations that charge you if you cancel less than 24 hours in advance. My biggest gripe is paying for something that I didn’t get anything out of. If I’m paying for a single pilates class, I will make sure I’m there trying my best on the reformer. So this has been a fantastic motivator.

Being 25 and living in NYC means that my weekends are always booked, so I’m always out and about, and this allows me to not think about work on my time off. I’m also lucky enough to have a great manager and team that keep very great work-life boundaries, so I never feel guilty practicing those boundaries myself.

Q: Was that balance always a priority for you or did you develop it later in your career?

Anaiya: This balance was definitely something I had to develop and actively work on. I’ve always been an anxious over-achiever, and when coming into my first corporate job I thought staying overtime would be expected. We’ve all heard the phrase: “Be the first one in and the last to leave.”

My manager actually used to actively tell me to log off when I first started because he would notice that my Slack was active past work hours (shoutout to Nic!).

Having him and my team as a great example helped me understand that there will always be more work and to enjoy the time that you spend away from your laptop. It was also the realization that working shouldn’t be your entire life. You need to develop hobbies and build relationships within your community in order to be a happier human being.

Q: What benefits has this balance given you?

Anaiya: The biggest benefit this balance has given me both at work and in my life is that I’m incredibly present when I’m doing one or the other. When I’m working during the day, I’m entirely locked in and take advantage of each hour. And when I’m done with the workday, I’m actually done and can focus on my hobbies or my friends.

It’s also taught me to plan in advance and it gives me a better understanding of how much work on average is expected for each project.

Q: What advice would you give to a developer seeking to find a better balance?

Anaiya: If you’re seeking a better balance, I recommend removing Slack from your personal phone and laptop. This way when you’re disconnected, you’re truly disconnected. Of course, there are some teams and companies that require you to be on call or working around the clock, but even then having a specific laptop or device with everything you need that is separate from your personal devices can help bridge this gap.

Thank you to Anaiya Raisinghani for sharing her insights! And thanks to all of you for reading. Look for more in our new series.

Interested in learning more about or connecting more with MongoDB? Join our MongoDB Community to meet other community members, hear about inspiring topics, and receive the latest MongoDB news and events.

And let us know if you have any questions for our future guests when it comes to building a better work-life balance as developers. Tag us on social media: @mongodb #AwayFromTheKeyboard

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The Learning Experience: Celebrating a Year of MongoDB Developer Days

One year ago today MongoDB held our first regional Developer Day event, a full-day experience designed to teach the fundamentals and advanced capabilities of MongoDB. Developer Day events have been held in person in over 35 cities, across 16 countries, and in seven languages. Initially created by a core team with a passion for enabling developers, a group of talented MongoDB Developer Advocates and Solution Architects have since scaled the program to directly engage and teach thousands of developers worldwide. As developer relations programs go, engaging builders through hands-on workshops is hardly a new approach. But the difference at MongoDB is how closely we collaborate cross-functionally with other teams, and how focused we are on providing authentically hands-on, engaging experiences for developers. From the start, the MongoDB Developer Day program was a collaborative effort to take a platform that is easy to get started with and to introduce more advanced capabilities in a compelling way. Based on the helpful and positive feedback we continue to get from participants, we know Developer Days help developers gain skills and a sense of accomplishment as they alternate between instruction and applying that learning through hands-on exercises. To share more about what has made Developer Days so successful, I asked members of that core team—Lead Developer Advocate Joel Lord , and Sr Developer Advocates Mira Vlaeva and Diego Freniche Brito —to reflect on key areas that went into creating this enduring experience. Our Developer Day class at MongoDB.local NYC in May, 2024 A sense of accomplishment “We all agreed that a Developer Day should focus on hands-on learning, where developers can experiment with MongoDB, potentially make mistakes, and take pride in building something on their own,” Mira said. “The goal was to build a fun learning experience rather than just sitting and listening to lectures all day.” The curriculum was designed to encourage developers to work together at certain points as they advance from data modeling and schema design concepts to implementing powerful Atlas Search and Vector Search capabilities. “One of my favorite moments of the day is when people start working together,” Joel said. “At the beginning of the day, our attendees can be a little hesitant, but they quickly begin to collaborate with each other, and it's wonderful to witness that happen.” Building great Developer Days together While our MongoDB Developer Relations team designed the agenda and course material, it was our partnerships with other teams and stakeholders that helped Developer Days take flight. There were many key stakeholders that shared a vision for enabling developers to realize more value with our platform. As Joel remembers, “We had to work and collaborate with a number of other teams, which was, at the time, new to us.” Among the key teams involved, Diego added, “Working with Field and Strategic Marketing teams has been a great experience. They help us so much with all the really important tasks… there's so much they've done that Developer Days wouldn't be a reality without them.” The program has expanded our collaboration with several other teams, including marketing, product, and sales, to ensure our courses remain up-to-date and we make the most of our time in each city by welcoming developers from key accounts. Continued success and improvements To ensure Developer Days were as impactful as possible, we initially ran the program as a pilot in seven cities. In addition to noting live observations and interactions, we used surveys to collect feedback and report on an NPS (net promoter score) to assess whether the event exceeded participant expectations. These initial events were spaced out enough that the team could implement improvements and try new approaches at subsequent Developer Days. “We had the opportunity to run the same labs multiple times, make small changes each time, and observe how people react to the different configurations,” said Mira, who continues to contribute improvements such as new interactive elements. As we continue to bring the Developer Day experience to new cities, we’re also taking Developer Days online. “There are so many reasons why people may not be able to attend our in-person events,” said Lauren Schaefer , who recently rejoined MongoDB Developer Relations to lead the program forward. “I look forward to working with my team to tackle the challenges of bringing our curriculum successfully online.” So a year later, I want to say thank you to everyone who has made Developer Days a success—from seven staff members who supported our first event in Chicago, to the roughly 100 talented people across MongoDB who are now part of the program. Even more importantly, I’m thankful for all of the participants (across 35 great cities and 16 countries!) that joined us for this full-day experience. As I love to say at the beginning of every Developer Day, we’re here to learn from each other. I hope you’ve learned as much from us as we have from you! To learn more about MongoDB’s global community of millions of developers—and to check out upcoming events like Developer Days—please visit our events page .

August 29, 2024
Next →

MongoDB Database Observability: Integrating with Monitoring Tools

This post is the final in a three-part series on leveraging database observability. Welcome back to our series on Leveraging Database Observability! Our previous post showcased a real-world use case highlighting how MongoDB Atlas’s observability tools effectively tackle database performance challenges. Whether you’re a developer, DBA, or DevOps engineer, our mission is to empower you to harness the full potential of your data through our observability suite . Integrating Atlas metrics with your central enterprise observability tools can simplify your operations. By seamlessly working with popular observability tools, our approach helps teams streamline workflows and enhance visibility across systems. Integrating MongoDB Atlas with third-party monitoring tools MongoDB’s developer data platform combines all essential data services for building modern applications within a unified experience. Our purpose-built observability tools for Atlas environments offer automatic monitoring and optimization, guiding diagnostics tailored specifically for MongoDB. Additionally, we extend Atlas metrics into your existing enterprise observability stack, enabling seamless integration without replacing your current tools. This creates a consolidated, single-pane view that unifies Atlas telemetry with other tech and application metrics, ensuring comprehensive visibility into both database and full-stack performance. This integration empowers you to monitor, receive alerts, and make data-driven decisions within your existing workflows, driving greater efficiency. Below is a quick guide to modifying integration settings through the Atlas UI and the popular integrations we support: Navigate to the Project Integrations page in Atlas. Choose the organization and project you want to configure from the navigation bar. On the Project Integrations page, select the third-party services you’d like to integrate. Configure the chosen services with the required API keys and regions. Critical integrations for your observability platform With Atlas’s Datadog and Prometheus integrations, you can send critical MongoDB metrics to these platforms, empowering detailed, real-time monitoring. Through Datadog , you can track database operation counts, query efficiency, and resource usage, ideal for pinpointing bottlenecks and managing resources. Similarly, Prometheus enables you to monitor essential metrics like query times, connection rates, and memory usage, supporting flexible tracking of database health and performance. Both integrations facilitate proactive detection of issues, alert configuration for resource thresholds, and a cohesive view of Atlas data when visualized in Grafana. Atlas’s integration with PagerDuty streamlines incident management by sending metrics like performance alerts, billing anomalies, and security events directly to PagerDuty. This integration records incidents automatically, notifies teams upon alerts, and supports two-way syncing, ensuring resolved alerts in Atlas are reflected in PagerDuty. It enables efficient incident response and resource allocation to maintain system stability. With Atlas integrations for Microsoft Teams and Slack, you can route key metrics—such as query latency, disk usage, and throughput—to these channels for timely updates. Teams can use these insights for real-time performance monitoring, incident response, and collaboration. Notifications through these platforms ensure your team stays informed on database performance, storage health, and user activity changes as they occur. Use case: Centralized observability with MongoDB Atlas, Datadog, and Slack Let’s walk through a hypothetical scenario for ShopSmart, an e-commerce company that leverages MongoDB Atlas to manage its product catalog and customer data. As traffic surges, the DevOps team faces challenges in monitoring application performance and database health effectively. To tackle these challenges, the team leverages MongoDB Atlas’ integration with Datadog and Slack, creating a powerful observability ecosystem. Integrating MongoDB Atlas with Datadog: The team pushes key MongoDB Atlas metrics into Datadog, such as query performance, connection counts, and Atlas Vector Search metrics. With Datadog, they can visualize these metrics and correlate overall MongoDB performance with their other applications. Out-of-the-box monitors and dedicated dashboards allow the team to track metrics like throughput, average read/write latency, and current connections. This visibility helps pinpoint bottlenecks in real time, ensuring optimal database performance and improving overall application responsiveness. Setting up alerts in Datadog: The team configures alerts for critical metrics like high query latency and increased error rates. When thresholds are breached, Datadog instantly notifies the team. This proactive approach allows the team to address potential performance issues before they impact customers. Integrating Datadog with Slack: To ensure fast communication, alerts are sent directly to the dedicated Slack channel, “ShopSmart-Alerts.” This integration fosters seamless collaboration, enabling the team to discuss and resolve issues in real-time. With these integrations, ShopSmart’s engineering team can monitor performance quickly and address issues efficiently. The unified observability approach enhances operational efficiency, improves the customer experience, and supports ShopSmart’s competitive edge in the e-commerce industry. By leveraging MongoDB Atlas, Datadog, and Slack, the team ensures scalable performance and drives continuous innovation. Conclusion MongoDB Atlas empowers developers and organizations to achieve unparalleled observability and control over their database environments. By seamlessly integrating with central enterprise observability tools, Atlas enhances your ability to monitor performance metrics and ensures you can do so within your existing workflows. This means you can focus on building modern applications confidently, knowing you have the insights and alerts necessary to maintain optimal performance. Embrace the power of MongoDB Atlas and transform your approach to database management—because your applications can thrive when your data is observable. And that wraps up our Leveraging Database Observability series! We hope you learned something new and found value in these discussions. Sign up for MongoDB Atlas , our cloud database service, to see database observability in action. To dive deeper and expand your knowledge, check out this learning byte for more insights on the MongoDB observability suite and how it can enhance your database performance.

November 14, 2024