Senior Forward Deployed Engineer – Data & AI

Neon; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 182,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Databricks is seeking a Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer to partner with federal government customers, owning architecture and end‑to‑end delivery of data and AI solutions on the Databricks platform.

You will lead design decisions, implement production‑grade systems, and ensure alignment with security and scalability requirements while collaborating across engineering, product, and customer teams. The role is hands‑on and customer facing, demanding adaptability, curiosity, and a passion for

Qualifications

• 6+ years experience in data engineering, data platforms & analytics, or software engineering.
• Fluency in writing code in 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 PySpark, Apache Spark and knowledge of Spark runtime internals.
• Experience with CI/CD for production deployments.
• Working knowledge of MLOps, ML/AI models and AI APIs.
• Design and deployment of performant production end‑to‑end data architectures and applications that combine data pipelines, ML/AI models, and user‑facing interfaces.
• Experience with technical project delivery, documentation and white‑boarding skills.
• Experience working with enterprise clients and managing conflicts across a broad stakeholder range.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and design decisions for production‑grade systems, designing and building reference architectures, custom applications and data ingestion and ML/AI model integration.
• Guide transformational big data projects including end‑to‑end design, build and deployment across customer environments.
• Coach and empower customers on architecture and design; bootstrap or implement projects to enable successful adoption of Databricks.
• Own the architecture to ensure secure, scalable solutions aligned with customer needs and Databricks best practices.
• Deliver technical components with the Databricks team to meet customer requirements and timelines.
• Collaborate with Engineers and Customer Support to provide product feedback and rapid issue resolution.
• Embed with customer teams to deeply understand challenges and deliver measurable impact across stakeholders.
• Contribute accelerators, frameworks, and best practices that scale impact across accounts and influence the product roadmap.

Skills

Python

Scala

JavaScript/TypeScript

Cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP)

PySpark / Apache Spark

CI/CD

MLOps

Data architecture

Stakeholder management

Technical project delivery

Tools

Databricks Platform

Spark

Git

CI/CD pipelines

ML frameworks

Job description

Databricks is seeking a Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer to partner with federal government customers, owning architecture and end‑to‑end delivery of data and AI solutions on the Databricks platform.

You will lead design decisions, implement production‑grade systems, and ensure alignment with security and scalability requirements while collaborating across engineering, product, and customer teams. The role is hands‑on and customer facing, demanding adaptability, curiosity, and a passion for