Kaitlin Mahar
Senior Engineer at MongoDB
New York, New York, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolKaitlin Mahar is a senior software engineer at MongoDB with 11 years of experience building and leading development of official drivers and core server features. She leads the Swift driver project, contributes across languages (Rust, C, and JavaScript/BSON), and has a strong focus on testing, reliability, and API design. Kaitlin pairs systems-level backend work—modifying storage engine commands and oplog logging—with developer-facing efforts like spec writing and driver SDAM/topology improvements. An MIT S.B. and M.Eng. with research in HCI and tools for people facing online harassment, she brings uncommon product empathy to low-level infrastructure. Based in New York, she’s an active open-source maintainer whose contributions have tightened compatibility and error handling across MongoDB’s multi-language ecosystem.
11 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (S.B.), Bachelor of Science (S.B.) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stackoverflow
11reputation
160reached
1answer
0questions
Github Skills (48)
javascript10
c-language10
restructuredtext10
nosql10
testing10
technical-writing10
databases10
rs10
data-serialization10
c1110
mongodb-database10
implement10
serialization10
c1710
deserialization10
Programming languages (14)
Github contributions (5)
mongodb/specifications
Apr 2018 - Jan 2023
Specifications related to MongoDB
Role in this project:
Technical Writer
Technical WriterContributions:177 reviews, 55 commits, 40 PRs in 4 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Kaitlin's contributions primarily involve clarifying and expanding the MongoDB specifications documentation. They modified the "read-write-concern" and "transactions" sections, providing more detail and correcting inaccuracies. Further updates included refining the "versioned-api" and "command monitoring" specifications, as well as removing outdated information and improving clarity. The user also worked on updating the documentation for other areas, such as connection pooling and logging, and reformatting the documentation.
specificationsmongodb
mongodb/mongo-rust-driver
Mar 2022 - Jan 2023
The official MongoDB Rust Driver
Role in this project:Back-end Developer / Test Automation Engineer
Back-end Developer / Test Automation EngineerContributions:3 releases, 306 reviews, 39 commits in 9 months
Contributions summary:Kaitlin contributed significantly to the testing infrastructure and core functionality of the MongoDB Rust driver. They implemented and maintained tests for various Atlas connectivity scenarios, including those using SRV records and different TLS configurations. Additionally, the user was involved in testing and handling responses related to insert and update commands, particularly focusing on gracefully handling invalid UTF-8 encoding in error messages. Their work also included enhancements to command monitoring events and adjustments to server compatibility, indicating a strong focus on both reliability and feature validation.
rustrust-drivercargodatabasemongodb-driver
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