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The FDE (Forward Deployed Engineering) team is a new, strategic initiative sponsored from the CEO and Founders down. Our mission is to win C-suite-sponsored, high-value AI opportunities by selling and delivering outcomes, not just a platform.
You will be part of the founding team, embedded with our most strategic customers from the very first sales call, all the way through to a production-ready solution. You will be the "product manager" for the customer's problem, responsible for the "why" and "what," while our FDEs (Engineers) will be your partners responsible for the "how."
Role DescriptionAs a Deployment Strategist (DS), you are the critical bridge between a customer's multi-million-dollar business problem and Databricks' technical solution. You are a product manager for the field, owning the technical and product direction of the engagement from initial discovery through production launch and adoption.
You will build C-suite trust, perform deep discovery to map the customer's political and technical landscape, and scope the value. You will define the Minimum Viable Product for a pilot, write the PRD that guides the engineering team, and manage the project to a successful landing. You will also lead technical discovery, shape solution architecture with FDEs, and ensure that each proposed solution can move from prototype to production.
This role requires a rare combination of executive presence, deep product thinking, technical depth, and a hands-on delivery mindset.
The impact you will have- C-Suite Scoping & Value Definition: Partner with Sales to perform deep discovery, map the customer's organization, quantify the business value of $10M+ problems, and define the pilot, including its MVP, success criteria, and timeline.
- End-to-End Product Ownership: Author the PRD, prioritize the engineering backlog, manage scope, and act as the primary hands-on QA tester. Translate business requirements into clear data, integration, security, and operational requirements that engineers can build against.
- Technical Solution Leadership & Delivery: Drive the FDE build team through an agile delivery process, manage stakeholders from the C-suite to individual engineers, and unblock technical or organizational issues. Lead technical discovery and design reviews. Understand the customer's data flows, integrations, platform constraints, and operational environment; pressure-test architecture choices; and identify technical risks early.
- Solution Launch & Landing: Own the "Day 0" launch, manage the war room, and drive the solution from launch to full adoption by capturing user feedback, iterating, and proving the defined business value. Own production readiness across data quality, testing, security, performance, and operations. Work with the team to diagnose issues and drive them to resolution.
- Strategic Handoff & Growth: Scope the ongoing maintenance plan, create customer documentation/training, and leverage your trusted advisor status to identify the next high-value FDE engagement. Codify reusable solution patterns and bring field insights back to Product and Engineering.
- Executive Presence & Communication: You are a trusted advisor with strong executive presence and excellent communication skills. You are confident and humble, can build rapport quickly, and can help senior stakeholders make difficult decisions.
- Product Judgment & Delivery: You can define what to build and why, write strong product requirements, prioritize engineering work, manage scope, and lead complex agile software projects from an ambiguous problem to a measurable outcome.
- Technical Fluency & Architecture Judgment: You understand modern data and AI architectures, including cloud platforms, data pipelines, data models, distributed systems, APIs, security and governance, machine learning, and generative AI application patterns. You can lead architecture discussions, evaluate trade-offs, and pressure-test technical decisions.
- Hands-on Technical Ability: You are proficient in at least one language such as Python, Java, or SQL. You can explore data, work in notebooks, read and review code and pipelines, build or adapt prototypes, and contribute meaningfully to troubleshooting.
- Relevant Experience: Typically 7+ years of experience delivering complex, customer-facing data, analytics, AI, or software engagements, or equivalent experience as a founder or technical builder. You have helped deliver data, machine learning, or generative AI systems into production and understand the integration, operational, and adoption challenges that appear in real environments. Experience in a high-growth technology company, forward-deployed organization, or leading consultancy is valuable. You enjoy working onsite with customers (often 25-50%, sometimes higher) to drive delivery.
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, 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.
Compliance
If access to export-controlled technology or source code is required for performance of job duties, it is within Employer's discretion whether to apply for a U.S. government license for such positions, and Employer may decline to proceed with an applicant on this basis alone.
Skills Required
- 2+ years as a Deployment Strategist OR 2+ years at a high-growth startup in a builder/founder capacity OR 5+ years in a senior client-facing product or delivery role
- Executive presence and strong C-suite communication skills (trusted advisor)
- Product and systems thinking including SWOT and competitive analysis
- Experience in value-based scoping (TCO/ROI) and quantifying business value
- Experience managing agile software projects and prioritizing engineering backlogs
- Experience writing product requirement documents (PRDs)
- Hands-on execution mindset including acting as primary QA tester and escalation manager
- Ability and willingness to travel up to 50%
Databricks Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Databricks and has not been reviewed or approved by Databricks.
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials highlight comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage alongside mental-health resources, wellness reimbursements, and business travel insurance. Offerings are described as broad and modern, with core health coverage consistently emphasized.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave is explicitly called out, with details such as up to 20 weeks for birthing parents and up to 12 weeks for non-birthing parents in the U.S. Public materials also reference family-forming support, reinforcing the focus on families.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellness programs and perks include gym reimbursement, periodic wellness events (e.g., yoga, massages), and in-office meals and snacks in many locations. Personal development funds and discounts further enhance lifestyle and growth support.
Databricks Insights
What We Do
As the leader in Unified Data Analytics, Databricks helps organizations make all their data ready for analytics, empower data science and data-driven decisions across the organization, and rapidly adopt machine learning to outpace the competition. By providing data teams with the ability to process massive amounts of data in the Cloud and power AI with that data, Databricks helps organizations innovate faster and tackle challenges like treating chronic disease through faster drug discovery, improving energy efficiency, and protecting financial markets.
