CSQ327R189

Lead Technical Program Manager, Retail - Professional Services

At Databricks, our core principles are at the heart of everything we do; creating a culture of proactiveness and a customer-centric mindset guides us to create a unified platform that makes data science and analytics accessible to everyone. We aim to inspire our customers to make informed decisions that push their business forward. We provide a user-friendly and intuitive platform that makes it easy to turn insights into action and fosters a culture of creativity, experimentation, and continuous improvement. You will be an essential part of this mission, using your technical expertise to demonstrate how our Data Intelligence Platform can help customers solve their complex data challenges. You'll work with a collaborative, customer-focused team that values innovation and creativity, using your skills to create customized solutions to help our customers achieve their goals and guide their businesses forward. Join us in our quest to change how people work with data and make a better world!

As a Lead Technical Program Manager at Databricks, you will be a key driver in our Professional Services team's mission to accelerate and de-risk customer outcomes. Your role is central to achieving project goals and maintaining exceptional customer satisfaction, particularly within our Retail customer base. While you are not expected to have hands-on coding experience, your technical acumen and strategic influence will be critical for guiding complex engagements to success. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to deliver excellence at every stage.

The Impact You Will Have

• Be responsible for the successful delivery of our most complex customer engagements by providing technical leadership and guidance to the implementation team.
• Guide technical teams through key architectural decisions, helping them navigate trade-offs between established and innovative approaches.
• Proactively identify and mitigate technical risks and dependencies that could impact project timelines and goals.
• Individually deliver on commitments by producing high-quality deliverables, status reports, program plans, and customer responses that require minimal rework.
• Effectively manage all aspects of a program, including scope, schedule, budget, risk, and resources, with a focus on technical complexity.
• Act as the primary point of escalation for customers regarding technical delivery issues and, as needed, escalate to other parts of Databricks for rapid resolution.
• Build trust and credibility with technical teams and stakeholders by clearly articulating Databricks’ vision and solutions and facilitating productive, goal-oriented meetings.

What We Look For

• Technical Acumen & Decision Making: A proven ability to stay current on technology trends and make sound technical decisions without being a hands-on coder.
• Program & Project Management: Experience managing large, complex engagements and mitigating unexpected technical challenges. Familiarity with managing the trade-offs between scope, budget, and timeline.
• Communication & Leadership: Excellent communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills. A track record of influencing technical teams and effectively tailoring messages for different audiences, from engineers to executives.
• Experience with BI, data management, and big data technologies is preferred.
• Proven ability to multitask and manage multiple engagements while delivering a high level of customer satisfaction.

FEQ227R208

Candidates in the listed region are encouraged for this role, we are open to remote candidates with a preference in the North East or Midwest at one of our office hubs.  

Mission

Reporting to a Director, Field Engineering, the Sr. Manager, Field Engineering will help lead a team of Solutions Architects (SAs) for the Financial Services segment of Databricks’ Regulated Industries Field Engineering team. You will lead and promote a diverse team focusing on enterprise software, big data/analytics, data engineering, data science, data warehousing and generative AI. Leading the technical sales team, you will partner with Sales (and other Field Engineering technical segments) to increase revenue and help customers achieve success through Databricks’ Data Intelligence Platform. You wil 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 hire, train, and grow a team of Solutions Architects for a company in high-growth mode
• Make your customers extremely successful with Databricks and provide outsized value to their businesses
• You will maintain a robust hiring pipeline of highly qualified, bar-raising candidates
• You will establish relationships across the business to make your customers and team successful
• You will keep your team of SAs ahead of the technical curve by ensuring they maintain advanced knowledge of the Databricks technology stack
• You will ensure that your team is continuously learning and working to provide our customers with the most comprehensive solutions for their needs

What We Look For

• Proven experience building and leading technical pre-sales teams - hiring, on-boarding, coaching and mentoring those teams to mature and grow into highly capable individual operators as well as exceptional team-players
• 10+ years of experience in the data space with a technical product (i.e. data warehousing, big data, machine learning, or more recently with generative AI)
• Trusted advisor to technical executives that guide strategic data infrastructure decisions
• Lead a team through best practices for technical qualification, technical validations, architecture discussions, and product demonstrations
• Establish and foster external partnerships with systems integrators (SIs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) that maximize and accelerate client success
• Strong understanding of consumption-driven business models and the recipes for long term growth and success
• Experience hiring candidates that continually raise the bar, ramping them up to be successful, and promoting into larger roles
• Create a positive culture and morale for the team - fostering strong working relationships between Field Engineering, Sales, and other important internal cross-functional teams
• Experience working cross-functionally with other teams such as Sales, Product Management, Engineering, and Customer Success
• Must be technical enough to earn the trust of Engineering talent and leadership at Databricks
• Ability to influence and review complex architectures; guiding your team and customers towards ideal solutions - that scale