Senior Data & AI Deployment Engineer — Customer-Facing

FDE Times; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 182,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Databricks is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to own end‑to‑end data and AI solutions for customers on the Databricks platform. You will lead architecture decisions, build reference architectures, and deliver production-grade systems including data pipelines and ML/AI model integration.

You will collaborate with engineering, product, and client teams, travel about 20% of the time, and shape long-term strategic initiatives while delivering measurable business impact for enterprise clients.

Qualifications

• 6+ years experience in data engineering, data platforms & analytics, or software engineering.
• Comfortable writing code in either Python, Scala, JavaScript/TypeScript, and modern frameworks.
• Working knowledge of two or more cloud ecosystems (AWS, Azure, GCP) with expertise in at least one.
• Deep experience with distributed computing with Apache Spark and knowledge of Spark runtime internals.
• Familiarity with CI/CD for production deployments.
• Working knowledge of MLOps, ML/AI models and AI APIs.
• Design and deployment of production end-to-end data architectures and applications that combine data pipelines, ML/AI models, and user-viewing interfaces.
• Experience with technical project delivery - managing scope, timelines and measurable outcomes, translating complex concepts into actionable solutions.
• Documentation and white-boarding skills.

Responsibilities

• Production Solution Delivery: Lead impactful customer technical projects by delivering production‑grade systems, designing and building reference architectures, custom applications and data ingestion and ML/AI model integration
• Transformational Impact: Guide strategic customers as they implement transformational big data projects including end‑to‑end design, build and deployment of industry‑leading big data and AI applications.
• Empower Customers: Guide customers on architecture and design; bootstrap or implement customer projects which leads to a customers' successful understanding, evaluation and adoption of Databricks.
• Own the Architecture: Lead architecture and design decisions, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, and aligned with both customer needs and Databricks best practices.
• Work with the Databricks technical team, Project Manager, Architect and Customer team to ensure the technical components of the engagement are delivered to meet customer's needs.
• Work with Engineering and Databricks Customer Support to provide product and implementation feedback and to guide rapid resolution for engagement specific product and support issues.
• Customer Immersion: Embed with customer teams, engaging with stakeholders from technical ICs to executives to deeply understand challenges and deliver impact.
• Reusable Assets & Scale: Contribute accelerators, frameworks, and best practices that scale impact across accounts and influence the Databricks product roadmap.

Skills

Data engineering

Data platforms & analytics

Software engineering

Python/Scala/TypeScript

Cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Documentation

Customer-facing communication

Project delivery management

Tools

Apache Spark

CI/CD

MLOps

Python

Scala

Job description

Databricks is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to own end‑to‑end data and AI solutions for customers on the Databricks platform. You will lead architecture decisions, build reference architectures, and deliver production-grade systems including data pipelines and ML/AI model integration.

You will collaborate with engineering, product, and client teams, travel about 20% of the time, and shape long-term strategic initiatives while delivering measurable business impact for enterprise clients.