Away From the Keyboard: Everton Agner, Staff Software Engineer

Evan Alger and Casey Stegman
December 11, 2024
#Culture

We’re back with a new article in our ongoing “Away From the Keyboard” series, featuring in-depth interviews with people at MongoDB, discussing what they do, how they prioritize time away from their work, and approach to coding.

Everton Agner, Staff Software Engineer at MongoDB, talked to us about why team support, transparent communication, and having small rituals are important for creating healthy work-life boundaries.

Q: What do you do at MongoDB?

Ev: I’m a Staff Software Engineer on the Atlas Foundational Services team. In practice, that means that I develop systems, tools, frameworks, processes and provide guidance within our systems architecture to other engineering teams so they can deliver value and make their customers happy!

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

Ev: My team is hybrid and distributed. I enjoy going to our office a couple of times every week (but don’t have to), and all of our team processes are built with remote friendliness in mind, which is very helpful. Occasionally, I go on call for a week, and make sure that my laptop is reachable in case something happens and it needs my attention. On my team, when there’s an on-call shift during a particular day or weekend that is really inconvenient, we are very supportive, and usually someone is able to swap rotations.

Q: How do you ensure you set boundaries between work and personal life?

Ev: It’s very easy to fall into the trap of never really disconnecting, thinking about or really just working all day when it’s just an open laptop away. As a rule of thumb, I tell myself that I only ever spend time outside of business hours doing anything work-related when I am not asked or expected to do so by anyone. When I do it, it’s because I want to and will likely have some fun! On the other hand, I’m very transparent when it comes to my personal life and responsibilities, as well as any work adjustments that are needed. Transparency is key, and I’m very lucky that all my managers at MongoDB have always been very accommodating.

Q: Has work/life balance always been a priority for you, or did you develop it later in your career?

Ev: It always was, but I struggled a bit during my first experience working from home in a hybrid model. Over time, I realized that the small rituals I’ve done during the days I commuted to the office, like getting ready in the morning and driving back home after work, were essential for me “flipping the switch” into on and off of work mode. Developing new rituals when I worked from home—like making sure I had breakfast, took care of my pets, or exercising after work—was essential for me to truly disconnect when I close my laptop. Otherwise I would struggle to enjoy my personal time during the evening or would think about work right after waking up in the morning.

Q: What benefits has this balance given you in your career?

Ev: I feel like both my personal and professional lives benefited from that. On the personal side, it’s really nice to know that my work schedule accommodates me not being a big morning person, and that it can take personal appointments that can overlap with business hours, like language classes (I’m learning Japanese currently!). On the professional side, sometimes I personally find it productive to spend some time during off-hours to research, write experimental code or documents, or just get ready for the next day while everything’s quiet.

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

Ev: For me, work-life balance means being able to fully dedicate myself to my personal life without affecting success at my job and vice-versa. Most importantly, it is important to make sure that it’s sustainable and not detrimental to your health. On a more practical note, if you have access to work emails or communication channels on your phone, learning how to set up meaningful notifications is critical. If your phone notifies you of anything work-related outside of working hours, it needs to be important and actionable!

Thank you to Everton Agner for sharing their insights! And thanks to all of you for reading.

For past articles in this series, check out our interviews with:

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 #LoveYourDevelopers #AwayFromTheKeyboard

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Atlas Stream Processing Now Supports Azure and Azure Private Link

Today, we’re excited to announce that Atlas Stream Processing now supports Microsoft Azure! This update opens new possibilities for developers leveraging Azure’s cloud ecosystem, offering a way to: Seamlessly integrate MongoDB Atlas and Apache Kafka Effortlessly handle complex and rapidly changing data structures Use the familiarity of the MongoDB Query API for processing streaming data Benefit from a fully managed service that eliminates operational overhead Azure support in four regions At launch, we’re supporting four Azure regions spanning both the U.S. and Europe: Azure Region Location US East Virginia, US US East 2 Virginia, US US West California, US West Europe Netherlands We’ll continue adding more regions across cloud providers in the future. Let us know which regions you need next in UserVoice . Atlas Stream Processing simplifies integrating MongoDB with Apache Kafka to build event-driven applications. New to Atlas Stream Processing? Watch our 3-minute explainer . How it works Working with Atlas Stream Processing on Azure will feel just like it does already today when using AWS. During the Stream Processing Instance (SPI) tier selection in the Atlas UI or CLI, simply select Azure as your provider and then choose your desired region. Figure 1: Stream Processing instance setup via Atlas UI $ atlas streams instances create AzureSPI --provider AZURE --region westus --tier SP10 Figure 2: Stream Processing instance setup via the Atlas CLI Secure networking for Azure Event Hubs via Azure Private Link In addition to adding support for Azure in multiple regions, we’re introducing Azure Private Link support for developers using Azure Event Hubs . Event Hubs is Azure’s native, Kafka-compatible data streaming service. As a reminder, Atlas Stream Processing supports any service that uses the Kafka Wire Protocol . That includes Azure Event Hubs, AWS Managed Service for Kafka (MSK), Redpanda, and Confluent Cloud. As we have written before , security is critical for data services, and it’s especially important with stream processing systems where connecting to technologies like Apache Kafka external to a database like MongoDB Atlas, is required. For this reason, we’re engineering Atlas Stream Processing to leverage the advanced networking capabilities available through the major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, and GCP). Networking To better understand the value of support for private link, let’s summarize the three key ways that developers typically connect between data services: Public networking Private networking through VPC peering Private networking through private link Public networking connects services using public IP addresses. It’s the least secure of all approaches. This makes it the easiest to set up, but it's a less secure approach than either VPC peering or private link. Private networking through VPC peering connects services across two virtual private clouds (VPCs). This improves security compared with public networking by keeping traffic off the public internet and is commonly used for testing and development purposes. Private networking through private link is even more secure by enforcing connections to specific endpoints. While VPC peering lets resources from one VPC connect to all of the resources in the other VPC, private link ensures that each specific resource can only connect to defined services with specific associated endpoints. This connection method is important for use cases relying on sensitive data. Figure 3: Private Link allows for connecting to specific endpoints Ready to get started? With support for Azure Private Link, Atlas Stream Processing now makes it simple to implement the most secure method for networking across MongoDB and Kafka on Azure Event Hubs. Login today to get started, or check out our documentation to create your first private link connection.

December 10, 2024

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Capgemini e MongoDB insieme per liberare le migliori energie dei clienti

Capgemini supporta le aziende nel loro percorso di trasformazione digitale e di business facendo leva sul potere della tecnologia. In qualità di partner strategico per le aziende di tutto il mondo, da oltre 50 anni la multinazionale fa leva sul digitale per trasformare il business dei clienti. Capgemini fornisce soluzioni innovative per ogni esigenza di business, dalla strategia alla progettazione alle operation, grazie alle competenze in ambito cloud, dati, AI, connettività, software, digital engineering e piattaforme. Con un fatturato di oltre 22 miliardi di euro e 340mila dipendenti, Capgemini opera in 50 Paesi del mondo. In Italia è presente in 20 città. Capgemini I&D è la divisione della multinazionale che si occupa dei dati. Nel corso del 2023 il management di questa importante struttura si mette alla ricerca di una soluzione innovativa ed efficace per costruire nel modo migliore le applicazioni che interagiscono con database NoSQL. La scelta ricade su MongoDB perché è la soluzione più significativa in quel comparto. “Non è l’unica tecnologia disponibile ma è quella più rilevante di tutte”, dice Stefano Sponga, head of go to market and portfolio I&D Italia di Capgemini, “e soprattutto per come è strutturata, per la dinamicità della modellazione del dato e per la possibilità di utilizzare la ricerca vettoriale, si sposa molto bene con le crescenti esigenze legate all’AI Generativa”. Offloading dei DB tradizionali e modernizzazione delle applicazioni: Due è meglio di uno “La soluzione MongoDB”, racconta Sponga, “ci ha permesso di creare, sfruttando l’AI Generativa, soluzioni particolarmente efficaci per il mondo delle assicurazioni, ma stiamo collaborando con MongoDB anche per il mondo del banking. Non nascondo che l’efficacia della partnership non nasce solo dalla tecnologia, ma anche dall’appartenenza al mondo della comunità opensource”. Gli use case più frequenti sono quelli relativi all’offloading dei mainframe e alla modernizzazione delle applicazioni, che portano a diversi vantaggi per i clienti: la riduzione del consumo di Mips (e quindi anche un ritorno in termini di sostenibilità energetica e ambientale), l’efficientamento dei processi e la riduzione dei costi. “MongoDB può essere utilizzato ad esempio come ambiente di storage a basso costo e alta efficienza”, dice Sponga, “su cui re-indirizzare chiamate su canali specifici come le App invece di utilizzare i mainframe. Oppure si possono storicizzare i dati a basso tasso di accesso, consultabili in modo efficace separatamente rispetto ai data warehouse, e integrare facilmente i due mondi”. Capgemini sta anche lavorando, utilizzando la tecnologia MongoDB, ad applicazioni nel segmento Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), che permettono di sfruttare la potenza dell’AI Generativa e dei Large Language Models circoscrivendo però le ricerche a un insieme chiuso di documenti (ad esempio i contratti delle assicurazioni). “Per quanto riguarda l’esperienza in Italia, quella che ho potuto sperimentare in prima persona”, prosegue Sponga, “ho notato sia la capillarità dell’organizzazione MongoDB sia la dinamicità delle persone che fanno parte del loro gruppo. C’è sempre stata una grande prontezza di risposta ai nostri quesiti ma la cosa più interessante è l’affinità del modus operandi dei nostri team, che consiste in un approccio strategico e non tattico ai progetti”. Un futuro di sintonia e di crescita congiunta “Gli aspetti sinergici tra il nostro approccio e quello di MongoDB”, conclude Sponga, “innescheranno ulteriori meccanismi di integrazione, abilitati dalla tecnologia. Stiamo pensando, ad esempio, a estensioni della partnership anche ai nostri prodotti per il core banking. Si tratta insomma di una coesione stretta e di una collaborazione strategica, non di un’opportunistica e tattica system integration”. Più in generale, Capgemini è intenzionata a utilizzare la tecnologia MongoDB in tutti quegli use case dove non ci sono forti esigenze di analisi numerica ma di eterogeneità dei dati e di scalabilità. “Non è difficile immaginare applicazioni in ambito energy ad esempio”, conclude Sponga, “oppure anche nel settore space & defence”. MongoDB è il vendor più rilevante nell’ambito NoSQL. Con loro abbiamo una partnership strategica giovane ma caratterizzata già da un legame molto forte, una relazione a cui partecipa anche il top management. Stefano Sponga, head of go to market and portfolio I&D Italia, Capgemini Guarda come realizzare un efficace Mainframe Offloading con MongoDB Atlas .

December 11, 2024