Sr. Deployment Strategist, FDE - Digital Native Business

San Francisco · California · USD 219,765-302,220 / year · 7+ years experience · Posted Sep 21, 2026

At a glance

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.

As a Deployment Strategist (DS), you are the critical bridge between a customer's multi-million-dollar business problem and Databricks' technical solution.
You own the technical and product direction of the engagement from initial discovery through production launch and adoption.
This role requires a rare combination of executive presence, deep product thinking, technical depth, and a hands-on delivery mindset.

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.
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.
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 customer data flows, integrations, platform constraints, and operational environment, and pressure-test architecture choices.
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, and work with the team to diagnose issues and drive them to resolution.
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 as a trusted advisor with strong executive presence and excellent communication skills.
Product Judgment & Delivery to define what to build and why, write strong product requirements, prioritize engineering work, manage scope, and lead complex agile software projects.
Technical Fluency & Architecture Judgment to 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.
Hands-on Technical Ability proficient in at least one language, such as Python, Java, or SQL.
Typically 7+ years of experience delivering complex, customer-facing data, analytics, AI, or software engagements, or equivalent experience as a founder or technical builder.

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.