The posting
A newly created role to help Databricks create new product categories. As Databricks accelerates its most strategic products, we are investing ahead of the curve in the partner ecosystem that helps our customers adopt them, and we are building a new specialisation function to lead that effort. You will pioneer it across EMEA.
Reporting to: Director, Partner Field Engineering (EMEA).
As the Senior Product Specialist Partner Solutions Architect, you own how our leading System Integrator partners develop deep, market-leading expertise in Databricks' priority products:
- OLTP/Postgres (Lakebase): Databricks' fully managed, Postgres-compatible operational (OLTP) database for intelligent applications
- Product AI (Genie): Databricks' natural-language analytics experience, letting anyone ask questions of governed data conversationally
- AI Router & Governance (Unity Gateway): Databricks' governed gateway for securely managing, monitoring and routing access to AI and large language model endpoints
- Migrations & Modernisation: moving legacy data warehouses and platforms onto the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
- Turn-key Solutions: Cybersecurity (Lakewatch) and CDP (CustomerLake) with more to come
Your mandate is to take our leading partners to the highest tier of Centre-of-Excellence product specialisation on these products, and to turn them into independent, market-leading extensions of the Databricks field. Working hand in hand with our EMEA Product Specialist team, you will carry both the deep technical narrative and the business-value and go-to-market narrative that get these products positioned, adopted and scaled through the partner channel. This is a builder's role: you will design the blueprint for a partner product-specialist function that Databricks scales globally, starting in EMEA.
What we are trying to achieve
Databricks' priority products are seeing strong momentum across EMEA. Lakebase is one of the fastest-growing additions to our platform, Unity Gateway is newly generally available, and AI/BI + Genie are changing how customers work with their data. As adoption accelerates, our partners are central to helping customers realise value quickly and at scale. Deepening partner expertise in these products is one of the most powerful levers we have to accelerate customer time-to-value, and this role exists to build that capability deliberately and ahead of demand, so our partners lead the market.
What the role owns
- Building the partner specialist community (the day-to-day). Select, enable and certify leading EMEA partners to the highest tier of product specialisation, running the enablement engine end to end: partner selection, technical upskilling to expert depth, certification and first joint customer wins.
- Partnering with our Product Specialist team. Act as the partner-side counterpart to Databricks' EMEA Product Specialists, bringing the latest product expertise to partners, connecting partner enablement to live customer opportunities, and channelling partner and customer adoption insight back to our product organisation.
- Scaling specialist capacity through partners. Grow models where specialised partners bring product-specialist capacity to joint customers, so expertise scales across the ecosystem.
- Launch-partner motions. Position specialised partners as launch partners for major product releases, signalling ecosystem trust and accelerating go-to-market at each milestone.
- Thought leadership and the business-value narrative. Author the "better-together" technical and commercial story for these products in the partner channel: reference architectures, positioning, partner offers and value framing that let partners sell and deliver independently. Be a visible voice for partner product specialisation, internally and externally.
- Building the function. Define the operating model, the specialisation and certification criteria, the partner selection bar and the cadence, and create the template Databricks adopts to scale this function worldwide.
The impact you will have
- Accelerate customer adoption and time-to-value on Databricks' priority products by putting genuine product depth into the partner channel.
- Grow partner-led momentum behind our fastest-growing products, building partner capability ahead of the demand curve.
- Elevate leading EMEA System Integrators to full independence on the priority products, so they operate as market leaders and true extensions of the Databricks field.
- Establish a repeatable, globally scalable partner product-specialist function, proven in EMEA and exported across Databricks.
What we look for
- Extensive hands-on experience with the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, with genuine depth in at least two of the priority products above and the ability to get to depth quickly on the rest. This is a senior role for an established Databricks expert.
- Proven ability to build partner or field capability at scale: enablement, certification and community-building that turns others into independent experts.
- Strong business-value and go-to-market instinct: able to translate technical depth into commercial positioning and partner-led market impact, and to engage partner and customer organisations at senior-executive level.
- Demonstrated thought leadership: authoring technical and business content (reference architectures, solution guides, positioning, playbooks) and presenting complex products credibly to technical and executive audiences.
- At least 5 years of technical pre-sales or sales-methodology experience in a consumption business model, and experience designing and delivering end-to-end data, warehousing and AI architectures.
- Coding experience in a core language (Python, SQL, Java or Scala) and hands-on experience building data applications or AI agents.
- The maturity to build a new function from the ground up: defining the operating model, standards and cadence, and managing multiple changing priorities across a partner ecosystem and internal teams.
Nice to have: System Integrator or consulting background; experience with transactional databases (e.g. PostgreSQL) and application development; experience with LLM gateways, AI governance or AI security; experience running partner specialisation, certification or champion programmes; additional European languages.
The role requires up to 40% travel across EMEA, to partner sites, Databricks offices and key industry events.
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.
