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At Databricks, we are passionate about enabling data teams to solve the world's most challenging problems — from making the next mode of transportation a reality to accelerating medical breakthroughs. We do this by building and running the world's best data and AI platform, enabling our customers to use deep data insights to improve their businesses. Our ability to execute this mission depends on building trust and recognition within an ever-growing community of data engineers, analysts, scientists, machine learning practitioners, and AI practitioners.
Databricks’ Developer Relations team is looking for a leader to manage our Developer Advocates, shape how we bring the Data + AI Platform to life, and lead technical content and experiences that drive product adoption. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in the spotlight, brings deep Databricks expertise, and gets even more satisfaction from helping other advocates grow into it.
As the Developer Advocate Manager for Databricks, you'll lead the team that advocates for our commercial platform and serve as a crucial link between our engineering teams and the broad community of data professionals building their careers on Databricks. Your team's remit spans the full arc of what practitioners actually do on the platform: ingesting and moving data with Lakeflow, building and governing pipelines and tables with Unity Catalog and Delta Lake, warehousing and analytics with Databricks Lakehouse and AI/BI, and building agents and AI applications with Genie Agent, Genie Code, Lakebase, and Databricks Apps. You'll be as comfortable talking to a data engineer debugging a pipeline as to an analyst building their first AI/BI dashboard and Genie One.
This role will leverage your expertise in building and scaling a developer relations team to educate, inspire, and support a rapidly growing user base. You'll translate product roadmaps into developer-ready content and community programs, and coach your team on building a content flywheel — where a single demo, video, or talk becomes the source of truth for a dozen derivative assets rather than a one-off deliverable. You'll also help the team apply AI thoughtfully as a force multiplier across their workflows, raising output without ever lowering the technical bar.
Your responsibilities will encompass both team leadership and a wide range of knowledge-sharing activities. You'll lead by example: delivering engaging talks, hosting panels and meetups, creating blogs and video content, developing courseware, answering questions in community forums, and meeting one-on-one with influential data engineers, analysts, and scientists.
Community engagement will be at the heart of your role. You'll work closely with the Databricks community and with product and engineering teams, ensuring that user needs and product development align seamlessly. Reporting directly to the Head of Developer Relations, you'll collaborate with fellow DevRel managers across our Open Source, App Dev, and DevRel Programs teams to create a cohesive and impactful developer relations strategy.
The ideal candidate embodies the values of our Developer Relations team: a deep passion for data and AI, genuine empathy for developers' needs, and a strong commitment to explaining our products clearly and honestly.
More about the DevRel teamThe Developer Relations (DevRel) team at Databricks is dedicated to building and fostering relationships with communities of data practitioners. Our goal is to drive awareness and adoption of the Databricks Data + AI Platform — including Lakeflow, Lakebase, Genie Agent, and AI/BI — alongside the open source projects that underpin it, such as Apache Spark™, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, MLflow, Apache Iceberg™, and Omnigent. Our team also owns programs like the Databricks MVP program, the user group program, and DevConnect roadshows.
The impact you will have- Own developer relations for the Databricks Platform end-to-end — set the strategy, define what success looks like, and be accountable for the outcomes.
- Hire, level, and grow a team of Developer Advocates, and take real ownership of their careers: clear expectations, honest feedback, and a visible path forward.
- Establish repeatable advocacy approaches — content flywheels, demo standards, event playbooks — that the rest of DevRel can adopt and replicate.
- Build a team of strong storytellers who can make a complex platform feel obvious, and who scale their work through the community rather than through sheer volume.
- Represent the practitioner community inside R&D at the product-area level, turning community friction into a documented, prioritized roadmap change.
- Drive awareness and adoption of Databricks technologies through your own speaking at industry events and conferences, and by getting your team on the right stages.
- Guide the creation of high-quality educational content — videos, sample notebooks, datasets, tutorials, courseware, and blog posts — that meets a high technical bar.
- Expand and nurture the Databricks community by growing meetups and user groups and supporting practitioners in online communities.
- Apply AI-assisted workflows to increase your team's leverage while maintaining technical depth and originality.
- Define and defend meaningful success metrics for a DevRel team, and explain them to executives.
- 8+ years of combined experience in developer relations or developer advocacy and in a hands-on technical role — software engineer, data engineer, solutions architect, or similar.
- 2+ years managing and growing a developer relations team, including hiring, leveling, and promoting advocates.
- You have done the work yourself. You've written the posts, built the demos, given the talks, and sat in the forums — and you can still do all of it.
- Demonstrated ability to set and execute a developer relations strategy for a product area, not just run a content calendar.
- Subject matter knowledge of solving data engineering, data science, and data analytics problems at scale, and an understanding of how business users consume the results.
- Comprehensive understanding of the Databricks Data + AI Platform and ecosystem — you can give the demo and use the product the way a practitioner would.
- Working knowledge of Databricks capabilities such as Lakeflow, Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Databricks Lakehouse, AI/BI Dashboards, Genie, Genie Agents, and Databricks Apps.
- A genuine passion for growing people and building strong teams.
- Active participation and recognized leadership in data and AI community forums, chats, and meetups.
- Proven track record in nurturing developer communities, organizing user groups, and facilitating global meetups.
- Exceptional communication skills, with a talent for articulating complex concepts through writing, teaching, video, and public speaking.
- Deep empathy for developer needs, with the ability to craft engaging experiences across tutorials, notebooks, and community platforms.
- Experience using AI to scale a team's output without lowering the technical bar.
- Adept at collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders to align community initiatives with product objectives.
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.
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.
Applicant Privacy Notice
Skills Required
- 8+ years combined experience in developer relations or hands-on technical role (software engineer, data engineer, solutions architect)
- 2+ years managing and growing a developer relations team, including hiring, leveling, and promoting advocates
- Proven track record of producing technical content: posts, demos, talks, forums participation
- Demonstrated ability to set and execute a developer relations strategy for a product area
- Subject matter knowledge of data engineering, data science, and analytics at scale
- Comprehensive understanding of the Databricks Data + AI Platform and ecosystem
- Working knowledge of Databricks capabilities such as Lakeflow, Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Databricks Lakehouse, Genie, Lakebase, and Databricks Apps
- Experience hiring, coaching, and growing technical advocates and building career paths
- Active participation and recognized leadership in data and AI community forums, meetups, or user groups
- Proven experience nurturing developer communities and organizing user groups/global meetups
- Exceptional communication skills across writing, teaching, video, and public speaking
- Experience using AI-assisted workflows to scale a team's output without lowering technical quality
- Adept at cross-functional collaboration with product and engineering stakeholders
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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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are a meaningful part of offers, and periodic tender opportunities and secondary options have made private equity more tangible for many employees. This perceived upside contributes to strong total-compensation sentiment in key roles.
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Healthcare Strength — Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage is paired with mental‑health resources and wellness reimbursements, indicating a robust health package. Multiple summaries highlight broad coverage that employees can practically use.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Generous PTO, paid holidays/sick time, and fully paid parental leave are frequently described, with hybrid/remote flexibility common in the U.S. These policies expand time‑off accessibility across different life stages.
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.
