Sr. Staff Production Engineer - Data Platform

Databricks; Mountain View, San Francisco (CA, CA); On-site; USD 228,600 - 314,250; Full time

Job summary

Databricks is seeking a Senior Staff Production Engineer to shape the reliability strategy for the Databricks-on-Databricks environment. You will drive self-healing infra, automation, and agentic safeguards across multi-cloud platforms to keep mission-critical workloads rock-solid.

You will lead long-range SRE roadmaps, champion Chaos Engineering, and ensure 99.99% availability for internal data platforms powering AI models used by thousands of engineers.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production-level experience in distributed, multi-cloud environments.
• Proficient in Scala, Java, Go, or Python to automate operations.
• Familiarity with LLM infrastructure, training/inference pipelines, or agentic frameworks is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic vision for the operational stability of the Databricks-on-Databricks environment.
• Transition infrastructure from traditional SRE models toward an agent-driven, self-healing architecture.
• Ensure the platform—and the agents operating within it—remain rock-solid for mission-critical customer workloads.
• Define and drive the design of future self-healing infrastructure at scale with AI agents proactively detecting and remediating incidents.

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Overview

Databricks is building the world’s best data and AI infrastructure platform, enabling data teams to solve the toughest problems—from transportation innovations to accelerating medical breakthroughs. Founded by engineers and customer‑obsessed, Databricks tackles technical challenges across a massive, multi‑cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) stack that powers thousands of demanding workloads.

Role

As a Senior Staff Production Engineer you will lead the strategic vision for the operational stability of our internal "Databricks‑on‑Databricks" environment. You will transition infrastructure from traditional SRE models toward an agent‑driven, self‑healing architecture, ensuring that the platform—and the agents operating within it—remain rock‑solid for mission‑critical customer workloads.

Impact You Will Have

• Architect Agentic Reliability: define and drive the design of future "self‑healing" infrastructure at scale where AI agents proactively detect, diagnose, and remediate production incidents before they impact customers.
• Data Platform Optimization: own the operational integrity of the Data Platform that powers our internal AI models, ensuring 99.99% availability for compute, storage, and control plane services used by thousands of Databricks engineers.
• High‑Scale Operational Excellence: establish the next generation of "Change Safety" protocols, utilizing automation and agentic guardrails to manage complex deployments across 100+ global regions.
• Leadership in Chaos & Scale: serve as a technical bar‑raiser, evangelizing modern SRE practices—including Chaos Engineering—to navigate the structural transformation toward agentic, autonomous systems.

What We Look For

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or a related field.
• 10+ years of production‑level experience as a Software Engineer or SRE in highly distributed, multi‑cloud environments.
• Engineering Persona: write code to solve operational problems; build frameworks, automation, and tooling (Scala, Java, Go, or Python) to eliminate toil.
• Platform & AI Mindset: deep understanding of distributed data platforms and a passion for leveraging AI/ML to revolutionize infrastructure management. Familiarity with LLM infrastructure, training/inference pipelines, or agentic frameworks is a significant plus.
• Operational Grit: proven ability to remain calm and decisive under pressure, navigate large‑scale distributed systems, and drive incident‑to‑roadmap loops.
• Strategic Influence: experience building long‑range technical roadmaps and driving cross‑functional alignment, comfortable challenging senior leadership with data‑driven insights.

Pay Range Transparency

Zone 1 Pay Range: $228,600 — $314,250 USD.

EEO Statement

Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio‑economic status, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.