According to a new Dice.com salary survey, MongoDB ranks as one of top-10 most highly compensated technology skills. Indeed.com rates MongoDB as the second hottest job trend. And DB-Engines.com, which ranks over 200 databases on their relative popularity, MongoDB is now the fifth-most popular database in the world, this month surpassing IBM's DB2.
All great, right?
Maybe.
Buried in the Dice.com data, as well as the Indeed.com data, is evidence of real confusion. For example, of the top-10 most highly compensated skills in Dice.com's survey is "NoSQL." NoSQL is not a technology. It's not really something a developer can "know" in any real sense. NoSQL is a movement that describes a different way of modeling data but, as Basho founder Justin Sheehy correctly noted, there are as many differences among so-called NoSQL databases as there are similarities.
As such, knowing Basho's Riak won't really help you understand MongoDB. Perhaps at a high, conceptual level, but expertise in one doesn't really translate into familiarity with another. They are different databases with different approaches.
Employers looking for generic NoSQL skills need to think more deeply about what their application requirements are. Looking beyond relational databases for modern application requirements is a good start, but looking to generic "NoSQL" is not sufficient. Organizations should be looking for a modern database that dramatically improves developer productivity, encourages application iteration and enables a new wave of transformational applications in areas like Big Data, Internet of Things, mobile and more.
That database is MongoDB.
Is MongoDB "NoSQL." Sure. But it's much bigger than that (based on what people search for on Google, many organizations already seem to understand this). MongoDB is the fastest-growing database in the world, not because it fits the NoSQL category, but because it significantly improves the productivity of developers and the organizations for which they work. So if you're looking to hire technology talent, you're far more likely to be successful hiring an experienced MongoDB engineer than a "NoSQL engineer." MongoDB, after all, is an actual database. NoSQL simply describes an important movement.