10gen, the MongoDB company, today announced that MetLife, Inc. launched a new MongoDB-based application, MetLife Synapse (synapse.metlife.com), the industry’s first advanced developer recruiting tool designed to vet talent based on specific skills.

In an effort to attract the best developers to its new global development center in Raleigh, N.C., MetLife Synapse directs developers to submit resumes and LinkedIn profile data in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), which MongoDB natively stores. Introducing a relevant technical challenge enables MetLife to streamline recruiting efforts and efficiently match skill sets with open positions, while creating a database of rich, qualified talent.

“This application is a prime example of our global strategy to embrace disruptive emerging technologies whose timetables are days and weeks, not months and years,” said Gary Hoberman, CIO and Senior Vice President, Regional Application Development, MetLife. “We want to let the best developers know we speak their language not only in terms of cutting-edge technologies — which we are deploying at scale — but also in terms of a culture of speed and experimentation.”

According to The 451 Group, MongoDB is the most popular NoSQL database and now accounts for 47 percent of all mentions of NoSQL technologies in LinkedIn profiles.
Today’s news follows the recent announcement of the “MetLife Wall,” an innovative customer service application built on MongoDB that integrates over 70 legacy systems, and which went live in May 2013 after only three months of development. These MongoDB-based applications are part of a series of big data projects that MetLife is working on to transform the company and bring technology, business and customers together.

“Windows Azure is committed to supporting innovation and giving developers an open development platform in the cloud. Taking advantage of the Windows Azure Cloud for this innovative solution, MetLife has demonstrated an understanding of the cloud’s power and a desire to apply new technologies to solve real business problems,” said Angela Cooper, General Manager at Microsoft. “We are excited about MetLife’s next use of Windows Azure, which is large scale consumer-facing social application.”

“MetLife has once again proven how quickly new innovations can be brought to market with NoSQL technologies that allow companies of all sizes to be agile,” said Max Schireson, CEO at 10gen. “MongoDB supports a fast and flexible development model that helps MetLife meet pressing business needs and improve the customer experience.”

MongoDB is the open-source, document database popular among developers and IT professionals due to its agile and scalable approach. MongoDB provides a JSON data model with dynamic schemas, extensive driver support, auto-sharding, built-in replication and high availability, full and flexible index support, rich queries, aggregation, in-place updates and GridFS for large file storage.

Common use cases include operational and analytical big data, content management and delivery, mobile and social infrastructure, user data management and data hub.