Sr. Manager, Field Engineering (Specialist)
$302k+Application analysis
Sr. Manager, Field Engineering (Specialist) at Databricks is a forward deployed data & ai platform role for engineers who want customer-facing technical work with real deployment ownership.
Reading this role
This Forward Deployed Engineer role centers on embedded customer delivery — discovery, prototyping, integration, and production rollout. Key signals from the listing: Government / DoD context, 5+ years experience, Senior scope.
About Databricks
Databricks sells a unified data platform to enterprises. Forward deployed engineers help customers migrate workloads and prove value on live data. The role is anchored in Northeast - United States; Southeast - United States; West Coast - United States, so expect on-site customer work in that region.
Signals in the listing
Stand out for Sr. Manager, Field Engineering (Specialist)
- Lead your application with one paragraph tying Sr. Manager, Field Engineering (Specialist) to a specific customer or deployment you owned — Databricks hires for shipped outcomes, not tool lists.
- Prepare a 5-minute “week one on site” plan: who you would meet, what you would inspect in their stack, and what artifact you would deliver by day five.
- Show you can go from discovery notes → working integration → production checklist without needing a large internal team.
- State clearance status clearly up front (active, expired, or eligible) and mention any prior NIPR/SIPR, IL5, or government cloud accreditation work — recruiters filter on this early.
- This role is tied to Northeast - United States; Southeast - United States; West Coast - United States — mention willingness to work on-site with customers and any existing ties to that market (clients, partners, or domain knowledge).
- Compensation is in a senior band — emphasize staff-level scope: cross-team influence, architecture decisions, and customer exec communication.
Stand out at Databricks
- Demonstrate Spark/SQL fluency with a concrete example — Databricks will probe for specifics, not buzzwords.
- Demonstrate enterprise stakeholder management with a concrete example — Databricks will probe for specifics, not buzzwords.
- Strong candidates show they can whiteboard a lakehouse migration and then actually implement the first milestone.
- Read recent engineering blog posts, product launches, and customer stories on databricks.com — reference one explicitly in your outreach to show genuine interest.
Tailored from this listing’s title, company, and description. Always verify requirements on the company careers page before applying.
Role description
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Sr. Manager, Field Engineering (Specialist)
While candidates in the listed locations are encouraged for this role, we are open to remote candidates in other US-based locations. Databricks is leading the next paradigm shift in solving problems with data and is looking for a Field Engineering Manager to lead our Databricks lakehouse expansion. Reporting to a Director of Field Engineering, the Sr. Manager, Specialist Solutions Architects will help lead a team of SSAs with the Retail, Consumer Goods & Travel/Hospitality (RCT) GTM vertical. You will lead and promote a dynamic team focusing on enterprise software, big data/analytics, data engineering, and data science. Leading the technical split-focused team (70% pre-sales, 30% post-sales), you will partner with Sales (and Solution Architects) to increase revenue and help customers become wildly successful. You'll scale and maintain an outstanding Field Engineering team that is efficient in its operations to help accelerate Databricks' growth in the market.
The impact you will have:
You will grow a team of Specialist Solutions Architects for a company in high-growth mode. You will maintain a hiring pipeline for ongoing hiring needs throughout the year. Crush your region's sales target - by partnering with your SA team on how to build a comprehensive technical point of view to establish the lakehouse architecture across a wide array of business units, identify valuable business-impacting use cases and validate consumption demand, and establish themselves as trusted advisors by building strong relationships with technical partners. Make your customers in your region extremely successful by driving priorities with sales and alignment with the other databricks technical functions (Specialist, PS and CS) Establish relationships across the business to make your customers and team successful.
What we look for:
5+ years of experience in the data space with a technical product (i.e. data warehousing, big data, or machine learning). Experience leading technical pre-sales teams - hiring, onboarding, and supporting pre-sales professionals, building a territory; up-selling strategic accounts; and exceeding annual quotas. Lead a team through best practices for technical account strategy, architecture discussions, and solution advocacy in a customer environment. Experience hiring candidates, ramping them up to be successful, and promoting them into larger roles. Create positive morale for the team, establish work-life balance and help foster a healthy and productive working relationship within the team and between Field Engineering, Sales, and other important internal partners. Experience working with other teams such as Sales, Product Management, Industry Got to Market and Customer Success. Experience with driving executive alignment in accounts that guides strategic data infrastructure decisions and establish partnerships through adoptions and growth.
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 base 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 anticipated 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
- $219,600—$301,875 USD
Zone 2 Pay Range
- $219,600—$301,875 USD
Zone 3 Pay Range
- $219,600—$301,875 USD
Zone 4 Pay Range
- $219,600—$301,875 USD
About Databricks
Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow. To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
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.