Senior AI FDE Role at Databricks - GenAI Career Growth in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This is a senior, high-visibility role at one of the most influential data and AI companies in the world. The AI FDE function sits at the intersection of cutting-edge AI engineering and strategic customer advising — a rare combination that accelerates both technical depth and business acumen simultaneously.
Compensation context: No salary is listed, but AI FDE roles at Databricks (India-based) typically range from ₹40L–₹90L+ CTC for senior profiles, with equity components. Globally, equivalent FDE roles at top-tier data platforms command $150K–$220K USD. The lack of transparency is a mild yellow flag for candidates who prioritize upfront salary visibility.
Skills developed here are in extreme demand:
- RAG, multi-agent systems, LLMOps — among the hottest skills in AI (2024–2026 demand curve)
- Production ML on AWS/Azure/GCP — cloud-agnostic deployment expertise is highly portable
- Apache Spark + Databricks platform — niche but valuable in enterprise data engineering
- Customer-facing technical communication — opens doors to Principal Engineer, Solutions Architect, or Head of AI roles
Green flags: Cross-functional influence over product roadmap, conference speaking opportunities (Data + AI Summit), and exposure to Fortune 500 customers are exceptional for career brand-building. Databricks is pre-IPO with significant valuation — equity upside is real.
Watch for: FDE roles can be demanding — balancing customer delivery with internal collaboration at pace. The travel requirement (every 4–8 weeks) adds lifestyle considerations. If you prefer deep R&D over applied customer work, a pure research or product engineering role may suit better.
Headquarters: Remote - India
CSQ326R35
AI Engineer - FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer)
Mission
The AI Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE) team is a highly specialized customer-facing AI team at Databricks. We deliver professional services engagements to help our customers build and productionize first-of-its-kind AI applications. We work cross-functionally to shape long-term strategic priorities and initiatives alongside engineering, product, and developer relations, as well as support internal subject matter expert (SME) teams. We view our team as an ensemble: we look for individuals with strong, unique specializations to improve the overall strength of the team. This team is the right fit for you if you love working with customers, teammates, and fueling your curiosity for the latest trends in GenAI, LLMOps, and ML more broadly. Open to remote locations.
The impact you will have:
- Develop cutting-edge GenAI solutions, incorporating the latest techniques from Databricks AI research to solve customer problems
- Own production rollouts of consumer and internally facing GenAI applications
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers across a variety of domains
- Present at conferences such as Data + AI Summit, recognized as a thought leader internally and externally
- Collaborate cross-functionally with the product and engineering teams to influence priorities and shape the product roadmap
What we look for:
- Experience building GenAI applications, including RAG, multi-agent systems, Text2SQL, fine-tuning, etc., with tools such as HuggingFace, LangChain, and DSPy
- Expertise in deploying production-grade GenAI applications, including evaluation and optimizations
- Extensive years of hands-on industry data science experience, leveraging common machine learning and data science tools (pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, etc.)
- Experience building production-grade machine learning deployments on AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Graduate degree in a quantitative discipline (Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Operations Research, etc.) or equivalent practical experience
- Experience communicating and/or teaching technical concepts to non-technical and technical audiences alike
- Passion for collaboration, life-long learning, and driving business value through AI
- [Preferred] Experience using the Databricks Intelligence Platform and Apache Spark™ to process large-scale distributed datasets
- Willing to travel once every 4-8 weeks to see customers (as needed)
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.
To apply: https://weworkremotely.com/remote-jobs/databricks-ai-engineer-fde-forward-deployed-engineer
Frequently Asked Questions
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