From zero to hero: My MongoDB story

A senior Database Administrator walks into his third week of intensive education at MongoDB and one of the first things he hears is – your area of expertise is dead!
As much as I would like this to be the beginning of a joke, it is a true story and it happened to me. So, let me tell you this story from the beginning.

A couple of months ago I was one extremely lucky person who got the opportunity to get training at MongoDB called Boot Camp. I’ve started with 2 weeks of learning basics online at MongoDB University. Only when I was familiar with the basics was I ready for a week of intensive workshops in London with one of MongoDB distinguished engineers.

And he was the one to tell me my job will be dead in 5 years!
With more than 15 years of experience under my belt as a Database and System Administrator doing all sorts of installation, configuration, migration, troubleshooting, as well as data recovery on Linux, AIX and z/OS environment, I consider myself a seasoned IT professional. Of course it was a shocking experience for me to hear all that knowledge and experience would become irrelevant in a couple of years. I’m sure anyone would feel taken aback.

But after the initial shock I was actually glad I’ve heard that and was even more glad to be there. After all, I was there to learn and grow as an IT professional. And the experience of attending MongoDB training was an amazing experience for me in every possible way – gaining new expertise is always exciting and rewarding but broadening your perspective and getting the lenses to see things from a different perspective is even more rewarding.

And yes, most of what I have been working on during the years will be moving to cloud or will be automated and it’s true there’s actually no need for much of a human touch there anymore. But the whole MongoDB training experience has helped me see new possibilities and database applications. You can safely say I now see beyond rows and columns. Some things I used to consider set in stone I now see as more flexible and fluid. And MongoDB is a stable modern document database with redundancy and scalability out-of-the-box.

Mind you, the course was really thorough and intensive. After two weeks of basics online, a week of in depth consultations with the said extinguished engineer and a couple of weeks of ‘fieldcraft training’ and simulating a different realistic potential client case every day – ending with writing client reports and recommendations as it were a real life consultation situation and tests and quizzes you really feel as an expert and comfortable to start working.
I have added a title of MongoDB Partner Consulting Engineer to my arsenal and already have an array of consultation jobs done in the UK alongside a senior engineer in a variety of industries, from advanced telecommunications or fintech to big law firms.

The thing is – in the ever-changing tech industry we all have to be open minded and be constantly learning. And if you need some MongoDB expertise, feel free to contact me!

Whether you’re building a new IT system or transforming an existing one, we are your experienced partner! Get in touch if you need help.