Databricks vs Cognition

Two late-stage, true-FDE shops at opposite ends of the scale. Databricks posts 20 distinct FDE titles across a global bench with a published $182K–$250K senior band; Cognition lists two Deployed Engineer seats, one of which shows a $95K–$132K federal base and the rest undisclosed.

	Databricks	Cognition
Open roles	66	2
Comp on board	$182K–$250K · $153K–$210K	$95K–$132K (base)
FDE type	True forward-deployed	True forward-deployed
Travel	Medium	High
Comp	Competitive	Equity-heavy
Stage	Late-stage	Late-stage
Our take	The lakehouse FDE — one of the largest, most geographically spread benches anywhere, with a distinct clearance-gated federal track.	The clearest proof that even the autonomous-coding leader still needs humans for the last mile — and it pays mostly in equity.

Bottom line

Pick Databricks if you want a legible ladder, published cash comp, and industry-vertical or federal seats in dozens of metros; the price is working inside a mature data-platform sale where the product is largely set. Pick Cognition if you want to shape how an autonomous coding agent actually lands in enterprises and are happy to take the upside in equity rather than cash; the price is thin disclosed comp, a small team, and a bet on one product category. Databricks is the safer career base, Cognition the higher-variance one.