Databricks
22 open Forward Deployed Engineer roles at Databricks across 81 listings, plus 2 closed. Curated with comp bands.
Comp on the board (by role): $182K–$250K · $153K–$210K.
On the board since Jul 2025 · latest role Aug 2026 · still hiring
Our take
Why Databricks
One of the few genuinely mature FDE orgs outside Palantir — and one of the rare ones hiring fully remote.
- FDE type
- True forward-deployed
- Travel
- Medium
- Comp
- Competitive
- Stage
- Late-stage
A good fit if you're…
- Engineers who want a settled FDE playbook, not a blank page
- People who want remote-first without giving up account ownership
- Candidates eyeing the cleared federal AI track
What they do
Databricks sells the lakehouse — a unified data-and-AI platform — and has spent years building a deployment function that lands that platform inside large enterprises. The GenAI FDE work sits on top of that: taking customer data and turning it into shipped RAG and multi-agent systems on Databricks infrastructure.
What “forward deployed” means here
Closer to true forward-deployed than most platform vendors: FDEs embed with enterprise data teams and own the technical outcome end-to-end. The commercial role runs remote (US) with light travel; the newer Federal track is DC-area hybrid at ~20–25% travel, US-citizenship and Secret-clearance-eligible.
Comp & leveling
The board shows $250K–$420K TC for the remote commercial seat — competitive, if a notch below frontier-lab bands — and $200K–$300K (employer-provided) for the Federal AI-FDE role, where the clearance and margin, not the headline number, are the draw.
Growth signals
Databricks joining the federal FDE land-grab alongside AWS, Cognition, and Scale is the tell: it already runs a broad commercial FDE org and is now carving out a clearance-gated public-sector track, where the least salary-transparent but highest-margin deployment work is quietly concentrating.
Analysis updated 2026-09-03
Open roles at Databricks
AI Engineer - FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer)
Mid/Senior FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Amsterdam, Netherlands (comp not disclosed for this geo). Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer - National Security
Senior FDE on Databricks' national security deployment team in Boston, Massachusetts; Delaware; Maryland; remote in California; remote in New York; remote in Washington DC; Virginia; West Virginia at a transparent $182K–$250K. A clearance-track national-security FDE seat — the highest-margin, least salary-transparent corner of deployment work, and Databricks is now openly staffing it.
Forward Deployed Engineer
Mid/Senior FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Berlin, Germany; Munich, Germany (comp not disclosed for this geo). Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer
Senior FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Austin, Texas at a transparent $182K–$250K. Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Public Sector
Senior FDE on Databricks' public sector deployment team remote in Virginia; Remote - Washington DC at a transparent $182K–$250K. Public-sector FDE work is the federal/gov land-grab — Databricks is carving out a dedicated, often clearance-gated track alongside AWS, Scale, and Cognition.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Retail
Senior FDE on Databricks' retail deployment team in the Central US at a transparent $182K–$250K. Retail FDE seats target demand-forecasting and personalization workloads — Databricks is building a named retail deployment bench.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Financial Services
Senior FDE on Databricks' financial services deployment team in the Central US at a transparent $182K–$250K. Financial-services FDE work is where Databricks' lakehouse plus governance story sells hardest — regulated data, high scrutiny, big budgets.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Healthcare & Life Sciences
Senior FDE on Databricks' healthcare deployment team in Boston, Massachusetts at a transparent $182K–$250K. Healthcare & life-sciences FDE seats mean HIPAA-grade deployments and clinical/biopharma data — a vertical few FDE orgs staff this deliberately.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Communications, Media, Entertainment & Games
Senior FDE on Databricks' media deployment team in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at a transparent $182K–$250K. Databricks is one of the only shops staffing dedicated FDEs against media, entertainment & gaming accounts — data-heavy customers with real GenAI appetite.
Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Manufacturing
Senior FDE on Databricks' manufacturing deployment team in Boston, Massachusetts at a transparent $182K–$250K. Manufacturing FDE roles push GenAI into industrial and supply-chain data — an underserved vertical Databricks is now naming explicitly.
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