Melissa Plunkett

Melissa Plunkett's work experience begins in 1999 as a System Support Analyst at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where they implemented system monitoring, improved backup processes, and implemented a disaster recovery plan. Melissa then moved on to become a System Administrator at the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies within the university, where they maintained Linux environments, supervised and trained junior administrators, and successfully migrated from SGI IRIX to Red Hat Linux.

In 2005, Melissa joined CARFAX, Inc. as a Systems Administrator, providing administration for multiple servers and desktops, as well as serving on the security committee responsible for PCI compliance.

Melissa then joined Rackspace Hosting in 2007, first as a Linux System Administrator and then transitioning to a Senior Sales Engineer role. In these positions, they provided technical consultation, supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and achieved promotion from level II to III through passing an internal exam.

Moving on to VMWare in 2012, Melissa worked as a Sr. Systems Engineer, performing pre-sales and field engineering for cloud automation and management software. Melissa provided demonstrations of software functionality and extensibility to large enterprises across the Americas.

Starting in 2013, Melissa joined Gazzang, Inc. as a Sr. Solutions Engineer, focusing on pre-sales and demonstrations for a Linux-based encryption and key management solution for big data platforms.

In 2014, they joined ObjectRocket, Inc. by Rackspace as a Solutions Architect, playing a significant role in expanding the product portfolio and increasing lead generation through collaboration with marketing and the sales team. Melissa also served as a conference speaker at industry events such as Rackspace::Solve and Big Data Tech Con.

Melissa's most recent position is at MongoDB, starting in 2017. Melissa has held multiple roles, including Sr. Solutions Architect, Sr. Product Manager, Lead Product Manager, and their current role as Director of Product Management, Cloud, which they assumed in December 2021. Throughout their tenure, Melissa has provided strategic guidance to enterprise accounts, achieved significant closed revenue, and spoken at industry events to share their expertise.

During a sabbatical in 2016, Melissa pursued personal goals such as learning welding and blacksmithing.

Melissa Plunkett's education history begins in 1992 when they started attending Truman State University. Melissa pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree and graduated in 1996 with a major in English and a minor in Classics. Following that, they attended the University of Missouri-Columbia from 1998 to 2000, obtaining another Bachelor of Arts degree, this time in Computer Science.

In addition to their formal education, Melissa has also obtained several certifications. These include the Red Hat Certified System Administrator - RHEL 6 from Red Hat, the GIAC Security Essentials Certification (GSEC) from SANS, and the Red Hat Certified Engineer - RHEL 5 from Red Hat, Inc. It is not specified when they obtained these certifications.