Director, Critical Communications

MongoDB is seeking a senior leader to build a new communications function within the Customer Organization. This role will own the strategy, operating model, governance and execution framework for a spectrum of situations requiring customer and stakeholder communications, ranging from high-stakes operational situations, incidents, critical advisories, security events, product changes, through to recurring action-required and informational type needs.

In this role, the leader will ensure MongoDB delivers transparent, accurate, empathetic, and well-timed communications during key moments of customer need. They will drive cross-functional collaboration across Technical Services, Engineering, Product, Security, Customer Success, Sales, Legal, and Corporate Communications to guarantee a unified and seamless corporate presence across both critical and non-critical events.

This is a highly cross-functional leadership role that is explicitly expected to operate in a player-coach model. You will shape the long-term vision for the function, define the processes and measures of success, and personally guide communications during the most complex and visible situations.

This role can be based out of one of our offices or remotely in the United States region.

What you’ll do

Build the function

• Define the charter, scope, roadmap, and operating model for the Customer Communications function at MongoDB
• Codify decision rights, review workflows, and escalation criteria for all operational communications.
• Orchestrate a scalable global model that ensures 24/7 follow-the-sun support.
• Recruit and mentor a team of specialized Communications Managers known for technical fluency and operational precision.

Own critical operational communications

• Lead communications for high-severity incidents, major customer-impacting events, critical advisories, and other non-urgent operational situations
• Ensure communications are timely, technically credible, audience-appropriate, and aligned across all stakeholder groups
• Create standards for communication cadence, approval paths, message quality, and post-event follow-through
• Help define what good looks like for first customer notification, update frequency, customer action guidance, and post-incident reporting
• Establish standard and measurable processes and methods for recurring operational customer communications.

Drive cross-functional alignment

• Partner with Engineering, Product, Security, Technical Services, Customer Success, Sales, Legal and Corporate Communications to deliver a unified and trusted voice to customers
• Clarify the boundary between operational communications and broader marketing or promotional communications
• Act as a senior advisor to executives and field leaders during critical situations, helping teams make sound decisions quickly and communicate with consistency
• Build strong working relationships with systems, tooling, and operations teams to improve targeting, delivery, and reporting of urgent communications at scale

Improve systems, process, and measurement

• Define the templates, playbooks, review models, and governance needed to make operational communications repeatable and high quality
• Partner on tooling and data requirements so MongoDB can reach the right customer contacts reliably and at speed
• Establish success metrics for the function, including timeliness, delivery confidence, stakeholder trust, and continuous improvement outcomes
• Lead retrospectives on communications performance after major incidents and advisories, turning lessons learned into better process and execution

Candidate profile

You are an experienced communications and operational leader who performs well in fast-moving, high-pressure environments. You know how to bring structure to ambiguity, translate technical complexity into language customers can understand, and build trust through clarity, empathy, and follow-through.

You are comfortable operating with senior executives, engineering leaders, field teams, and strategic customers. You can move between strategic design and hands-on execution, and you know how to build durable operating mechanisms rather than relying on heroics.

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in a customer focused technical, post-sale, operational, support, incident management, crisis communications, or related environment
• 5+ years of leadership experience managing teams and building cross-functional programs
• Demonstrated experience leading high-stakes communications during incidents, major escalations, security events, or large-scale customer-impacting changes
• Strong technical literacy, with the ability to quickly understand cloud, platform, service, and customer-impact narratives
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with both technical and executive audiences
• Proven success working across multiple organizations to align stakeholders, drive decisions, and deliver outcomes under pressure
• Strong program leadership skills, including experience building new functions, frameworks, or operating models from the ground up

Preferred qualifications

• Experience in Customer Support, Technical Services, Incident Management, Critical Communications, Escalation Management, SRE, Operations, or Customer Success in a cloud or PaaS company
• Experience building or operating a centralized urgent, crisis, incident, or critical communications capability
• Familiarity with communication tooling, CRM systems, operational notification platforms, and customer segmentation models
• Experience working with global teams in a follow-the-sun operating environment
• Knowledge of incident command, crises management, business continuity, or related operational frameworks
• Strong judgment in balancing speed, accuracy, legal/compliance considerations, and customer trust during high-pressure situations

Success in the role

In your first year, success will be defined by the following outcomes:

• Operational Maturity: Implementation of a fully adopted, scalable global operating model that ensures 24/7 consistency and eliminates manual process bottlenecks.
• Stakeholder Trust: Achieve documented increases in internal stakeholder satisfaction and confidence scores regarding communication accuracy and reliability.
• Strategic Impact: Successfully integrate communications tooling and data strategy, resulting in highly targeted, high-fidelity customer notifications.
• Measurable Efficiency: Achieve a significant reduction in time-to-first-notification and overall incident resolution communication latency.
• Customer Confidence: Measurable improvements in customer sentiment and trust metrics during critical events, verified through post-incident surveys and reporting.

About MongoDB

MongoDB is built for change, empowering our customers and our people to innovate at the speed of the market. We have redefined the data platform for the AI era, enabling builders to create, transform, and disrupt industries with software. MongoDB’s unified data platform, the most widely available, globally distributed data platform on the market, helps organizations modernize legacy workloads, embrace innovation, and unleash AI. Our cloud-native platform, MongoDB Atlas, is the only globally distributed, multi-cloud data platform and is available across AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

With offices worldwide and over 67,000 customers, including 75% of the Fortune 100 and AI-native startups, relying on MongoDB for their most important applications, we’re powering the next era of software.

Our compass at MongoDB is our Leadership Commitment, guiding how and why we make decisions, show up for each other, and win. It’s what makes us MongoDB. 

To drive the personal growth and business impact of our employees, we’re committed to developing a supportive and enriching culture for everyone. From employee affinity groups, to fertility assistance and a generous parental leave policy, we value our employees’ wellbeing and want to support them along every step of their professional and personal journeys. Learn more about what it’s like to work at MongoDB, and help us make an impact on the world!

MongoDB is committed to providing any necessary accommodations for individuals with disabilities within our application and interview process. To request an accommodation due to a disability, please inform your recruiter.

MongoDB, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type and makes all hiring decisions without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Req ID: 2273502117

MongoDB’s base salary range for this role is posted below. Compensation at the time of offer is unique to each candidate and based on a variety of factors such as skill set, experience, qualifications, and work location. Salary is one part of MongoDB’s total compensation and benefits package. Other benefits for eligible employees may include: equity, participation in the employee stock purchase program, flexible paid time off, 20 weeks fully-paid gender-neutral parental leave, fertility and adoption assistance, 401(k) plan, mental health counseling, access to transgender-inclusive health insurance coverage, and health benefits offerings. Please note, the base salary range listed below and the benefits in this paragraph are only applicable to U.S.-based candidates.

MongoDB’s base salary range for this role in the U.S. is:$176,000—$347,000 USD