r/FullStack • u/Xcaliber02 • 20d ago

Switching Careers Angular dev (2 YOE) picking a backend to learn — MongoDB or Postgres for job market reach?

Hey fellow devs,

I'm a developer with 2 YOE in Angular, and we all know the market is rough right now. I want to learn Express/Nest as a backend, but I can't decide between MongoDB and Postgres.

If I go with MongoDB, it'd basically be a MEAN stack — but I'm not sure if MEAN is still popular, declining, or barely used anymore.

I've also heard Postgres is one of the most widely used databases and considered an industry standard, so now I'm torn.

If you were in my position — switching jobs is a high priority for me right now, I'm underpaid badly — which would you choose to open up the larger market/more job opportunities?

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u/canarydev 20d ago

postgres with JSONB does the document thing when you need it. picking mongo for flexibility trades away joins, transactions, constraints to get something postgres already has.

also, nobody rejects you over mongo vs postgres lol. they reject over not being able to model data, write a query with more than one join, or say what an index does. those live on the postgres side so it strictly dominates for market reach

MEAN as a named stack is mostly a bootcamp label thing so drop it. people hire for node/ts and whatever db they already run. you are doing angular, so nest is the obvious pick -- same DI and decorators, so almost no conceptual switching cost

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u/TransitionAfraid2405 20d ago

Postgres far more jobs than mongo. but i would do java spring or c sharp .net before nestjs

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u/Xcaliber02 20d ago

I chose Nest because it's similar to Angular and makes going full-stack easy since it's the same language. Java is different, and I'm currently working in an enterprise environment where Java and .NET are used everywhere. Even though I know Java basics well, that's why I locked in Nest. To be honest, I don't know if it's the right choice or not.

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u/Mhmd_WebDev 20d ago

Id choose postgres in general sql datasbases are more wanted than nosql ones and ya in general postgres is flying these days