Senior Data & AI Forward-Deployed Engineer

Databricks; Berkeley (CA); Hybrid; USD 182,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Databricks is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will own the architecture, lead design decisions, and implement end-to-end systems spanning data engineering, AI, and application development for customer projects.

This hands-on, customer-facing role requires building production-grade solutions, guiding strategic customers, and collaborating with engineering, product, and customer teams to deliver measurable outcomes.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in data engineering, data platforms & analytics, or software engineering.
• Strong programming skills in Python, Scala, JavaScript or TypeScript.
• Experience with two or more cloud ecosystems (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Deep experience with distributed computing using Apache Spark.
• Familiarity with CI/CD for production deployments.
• Understanding of MLOps and ML/AI models.
• Ability to design and deploy scalable production data architectures.
• Experience delivering technical projects with scope and timelines.
• Strong documentation and whiteboarding skills.
• Experience working with enterprise clients and managing stakeholders.
• Willingness to travel ~20% and Databricks certification.

Responsibilities

• Lead production-grade delivery of data and AI solutions for customers.
• Architect reference architectures and data ingestion pipelines.
• Guide customers from design to deployment with measurable outcomes.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and customer teams.
• Provide feedback to product and support teams to drive improvements.
• Embed with customer teams to understand challenges and deliver impact.
• Develop accelerators and best practices for reuse across accounts.

Skills

Data engineering

Python/Scala/JS/TS

Cloud ecosystems

Apache Spark

CI/CD

MLOps

Architecture design

Enterprise experience

Documentation

Travel readiness

Education

Databricks Certification

Tools

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Databricks is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will own the architecture, lead design decisions, and implement end-to-end systems spanning data engineering, AI, and application development for customer projects.

This hands-on, customer-facing role requires building production-grade solutions, guiding strategic customers, and collaborating with engineering, product, and customer teams to deliver measurable outcomes.