Sr. Field Technical Program Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

CSQ327R216

As a Sr. Field Technical Program Manager (TPM) role in our Forward Deployed Engineering team, you will play a pivotal role in delivering complex technical projects that drive customer success and our business growth. Forward Deployed Engineering is part of the Field Engineering (FE) organization, the technical arm of Databricks’ customer-facing teams. 

The TPM position understands our customers’ business goals and can steer technical projects from beginning to end with exceptional outcomes. You will start on projects after a statement of work is agreed (i.e. post-sales) and will leverage your technical expertise and project management skills to navigate customer challenges and deliver with excellence at every stage.This role serves as the essential link between the Field Engineering teams and internal groups, including Sales, Product, and Engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Customer Outcomes: Own delivering customer outcomes for approximately five concurrent customer projects, ensuring high customer satisfaction
• Project Planning: Develop detailed technical project plans from finalized proposals or statements of work setting specific milestones, objectives, and key results.
• Project Execution & Risk Management: Drive measurable weekly progress with detailed tracking and by mitigating risks to project objectives, ensuring projects stay on track.
• Stakeholder Management: Facilitate effective meetings across technical and non-technical stakeholders, from engineering standups to executive steering committees.
• Leadership: Adapt to changing project requirements and priorities, proactively steering projects around challenges and collaborating across Professional Services, Engineering, and Sales teams.
• Technical Knowledge: Leverage and expand your understanding of data platform technologies and processes, such as data lakes, data governance, data quality, ETLs, and migration best practices, to drive customer outcomes faster.
• Process Improvement: Define and implement new processes and operational cadences to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Professional Services team.

Minimum Qualifications

• Experience: 5+ years of experience in Technical Program Management, preferably in a B2B SaaS, cloud, or data engineering/analytics company.
• Technical Background: A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. Must be comfortable diving deep into technical topics with Solution Architects and Engineers.
• Program Management Skills: Proven ability to manage complex, cross-functional technical programs and deliver results in a fast-paced environment. Strong understanding of Agile and other program management methodologies.
• Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences (from engineers to executives) and build consensus.
• Domain Knowledge: Foundational knowledge of the data and AI landscape (e.g., data warehousing, data lakes, ETL, streaming, data science, machine learning).

Preferred Qualifications

• Certifications: PMP, CSM, or related program management certification.
• Databricks/Spark: Hands-on experience with the Data Intelligence Platforms or Data frameworks like Apache Spark™.
• Cloud Platforms: Experience with public cloud provider solutions (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Customer-Facing Experience: Prior experience in a customer-facing implementation role (e.g., Technical Project Manager, Solutions Architect, Technical Account Manager, Professional Services, Product Manager).
• GenAI/ML Experience: Experience delivering programs related to AI, Machine Learning, or Generative AI.