Staff Partner Engineer, AI Partnerships

Databricks Inc.; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 206,000; Full time

Job summary

Databricks is seeking a Staff Partner Engineer to lead technical relationships with AI partners like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Gemini. You will own the joint roadmap, develop integrations, and create POCs and labs that demonstrate value to customers.

You will work across Product, Engineering, Strategic Partnerships and GTM teams, with visibility to founders and executives, in a high-impact Partner Engineering role.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in field engineering, consulting, platform architecture, or AI systems development.
• Deep knowledge of AI systems in production: model serving, inference, retrieval, and agent frameworks.
• Hands-on engineering: develop POCs, demos, and integrations for partner teams.
• Experience with Python and REST APIs; familiarity with SDKs.
• Established relationships with product/engineering teams at major AI labs and cloud providers.
• Experience in strategic technical partnerships and multi-company collaboration.
• Deep knowledge of the Databricks platform and AI architectures across partners.
• Strong communication and influencing skills; able to present to engineers and executives.
• Willingness to travel globally to partner sites and events.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary technical contact across AI labs; build relationships with senior stakeholders.
• Shape the joint product roadmap by translating partner needs into Databricks requirements.
• Navigate complex partnerships to align joint product offerings with customer needs.
• Design and build integrations connecting both platforms; validate new capabilities hands-on.
• Build POCs and reference architectures for engineering handoff or customer deployment.
• Collaborate with strategic customers to align AI architectures with Databricks and partner roadmaps.
• Develop technical enablement content for internal and external field teams.

Skills

Field engineering

Platform architecture

AI systems

POC development

Python

REST APIs

SDKs

Executive communication

Travel availability

AI partnerships

Tools

Databricks platform

Cloud providers knowledge

API integration tools

Job description

Staff Partner Engineer, AI Partnerships

New York City, New York; San Francisco, California

RDQ427R534

At Databricks, we are passionate about enabling data teams to solve the world’s toughest problems - from making the next mode of transportation a reality to accelerating the development of medical breakthroughs. We do this by building and running the world’s best data and AI infrastructure platform so our customers can use deep data insights to improve their business. Founded by engineers - and customer obsessed - we leap at every opportunity to tackle technical challenges, from designing next-gen UI/UX for interfacing with data to scaling our services and infrastructure across millions of virtual machines. And we're only getting started.

About the Role

We're looking for a Partner Engineer to lead the technical relationship between Databricks and our strategic AI partnerships - including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google Gemini. You'll own the joint roadmap with their product teams, drive the development of integrations that connect and extend both platforms, and get hands-on with new product features and tooling. You'll collaborate with partners to build POCs that become new products, demos, and hands-on labs - and ultimately the architectures our customers deploy. With direct visibility and engagement with our founders and executives, this high impact role sits in Partner Engineering and works closely with Product, Engineering, Strategic Partnerships and Global GTM teams.

Impact you will have

• Serve as the primary technical point of contact across the AI labs, building relationships with senior product and engineering stakeholders to drive joint innovation.
• Work alongside our technical executives to shape the joint product roadmap by translating partner capabilities and integration needs into Databricks platform requirements
• Navigate complex relationships in order to align on joint product offerings that address the needs of Databricks, our partner organizations, and our customers.
• Design and build the integrations that connect and extend both platforms, serving as the hands-on technical expert and early validator of new capabilities.
• Build POCs and reference architectures that hand off cleanly to engineering teams to productize, or to customers to deploy.
• Work with our most strategic customers to align their AI architecture and roadmap needs with what Databricks and our partners are building.
• Develop and maintain technical field enablement content to equip internal & external field teams with the knowledge and tools to deliver joint architectures and articulate differentiated 'better together' value propositions.

What we're looking for

• 10+ years in field engineering, consulting, platform architecture, or AI systems development, with the ability to master new technologies quickly while managing multiple partners.
• Depth in how AI systems are built and run in production, across model serving, inference, retrieval, and agent frameworks, and an understanding of how AI products are developed, delivered, and adopted.
• Hands-on engineering skills, with the ability to develop POCs, build demos, and debug integrations that hold up in front of partner engineering teams and customers. Experience with Python and REST APIs and SDKs.
• Established existing relationships within the product and engineering functions of major AI labs and cloud providers.
• Experience in strategic technical partnerships, navigating multi-company engineering initiatives, building consensus across organizations, and leading architectural discussions with clarity.
• Deep knowledge of the Databricks platform and the ability to design AI architectures that span it and a partner's products.
• Communication and influence skills, with the ability to present to engineering teams and executives, and to translate between Product, Engineering, and partner teams.
• Availability to travel globally to partner sites, conferences, and events as required.

Preferred

• Prior experience in Partner Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineering, or Alliance Engineering roles at AI companies, cloud providers, global system integrators, or major enterprise software companies, with a track record of driving product-to-product integrations.
• Experience taking AI systems to production at enterprise scale, including evaluation, cost and performance tuning, and the security and governance requirements that gate deployment.
• Background working at or with a frontier lab or AI-native cloud provider, including an understanding of how they build, ship, and go to market.
• Track record of creating technical content that developers use, including reference architectures, deployment guides, blog posts, and conference presentations.
• Strong familiarity with modern development workflows and AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex.

Pay Range Transparency

Databricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here.

Zone 1 Pay Range $150,200 - $206,450 USD

About Databricks

Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 20,000 organizations worldwide - including adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard, Rivian, Unilever, and 70% of the Fortune 500 - rely on the Databricks Data + AI Platform to build and scale data and AI apps, analytics and agents. Headquartered in San Francisco with 30+ offices around the globe, Databricks offers a unified platform that includes Genie, Lakebase, Agent Bricks, Lakeflow, Lakehouse, and Unity Catalog. To learn more, follow Databricks on LinkedIn , X , YouTube , and Instagram.

Benefits

At Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the benefits offered in your region click here.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

At Databricks, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can excel. We take great care to ensure that our hiring practices are inclusive and meet equal employment opportunity standards. Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age,