Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Digital Native Business

About the role

Databricks is hiring a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) for its Digital Native Business, a hands-on, customer-facing role focused on the San Francisco Bay Area. The engineer works with customers to build and productionize solutions to their data and AI challenges using the Databricks Platform, owning the architecture, leading design decisions and implementing end-to-end systems spanning data engineering, AI and application development. FDEs are billable and deliver projects according to specifications.

Key responsibilities

• Deliver production-grade systems, reference architectures, custom applications and data ingestion and ML/AI model integration
• Guide strategic customers through big data and AI projects, from end-to-end design and build to deployment, with engagement managers
• Lead architecture and design decisions so solutions are secure, scalable and aligned with customer needs and Databricks best practices
• Embed with customer teams, from technical staff to executives, to understand challenges and deliver impact
• Contribute accelerators, frameworks and best practices that scale across accounts and influence the product roadmap
• Provide product and implementation feedback to Engineering and Customer Support and help resolve engagement-specific issues quickly

Required profile

• 6+ years of experience in data engineering, data platforms and analytics, or software engineering
• Experience with technical project delivery, managing scope, timelines and measurable outcomes
• Experience working with enterprise clients and managing conflicts across a broad stakeholder range
• Ability to travel to customers about 20% of the time; the role is Bay Area focused, with relocation or monthly travel to the area

Required skills

• Code in Python, Scala, JavaScript/TypeScript and modern frameworks
• Working knowledge of at least two cloud ecosystems (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Apache Spark and distributed computing, including Spark runtime internals
• CI/CD for production deployments
• MLOps, ML/AI models and AI APIs
• Documentation and white-boarding skills
• Databricks certification