Databricks Field CTO

About the role

As Blend's Databricks Field CTO, you will help grow our Databricks business across North America, combining executive advisory, technical pre-sales, and architecture leadership. You will work with Blend Client Partners, Business Development leaders, and Databricks field teams to identify opportunities, shape engagements, and help clients translate their data and AI ambitions into production solutions.

You will serve as a senior technical authority for Databricks engagements, guiding platform decisions and helping delivery teams navigate complex architecture, integration, governance, and operational challenges. Internally, you will work with architects, data engineers, and AI practitioners globally to establish standards, strengthen technical capabilities, and develop reusable solutions and accelerators.

You bring deep technical credibility, commercial judgment, and enthusiasm for data and AI. You are equally comfortable whiteboarding with engineers, leading a client executive discussion, and working alongside delivery teams to resolve a difficult technical problem.

Responsibilities

Platform Architecture and Technical Pre-Sales

• Partner with Blend's Client Partners and Business Development leaders to shape Databricks opportunities, supporting discovery, proposals, architecture workshops, demonstrations, and hands-on labs.
• Translate client priorities into solution architectures, delivery roadmaps, effort estimates, and clearly defined business outcomes.
• Design architectures spanning lakehouse modernization, batch and streaming data engineering, analytics, machine learning, and generative and agentic AI.
• Establish approaches for governance, security, data quality, interoperability, performance, and cost management.
• Work directly with Databricks account teams, Solutions Architects, and specialists to develop joint solutions and support co-sell opportunities.

Technical Leadership and Delivery

• Guide critical architecture decisions and validate proposed solutions against enterprise scale, reliability, security, and operational requirements.
• Help teams resolve complex challenges across data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, integrations, governance, and production AI systems.
• Maintain continuity from pre-sales through delivery, ensuring that scope, assumptions, architecture decisions, and success criteria are understood.
• Provide hands-on support for strategic proofs of concept, reference implementations, architecture reviews, and delivery escalations.
• Help clients move from experimentation to production with appropriate evaluation, monitoring, deployment, and support practices.

Practice Development and Databricks Community

• Work across Blend's global teams to establish architecture standards, reusable patterns, accelerators, and delivery guidance.
• Mentor architects and engineers, support technical hiring, and help build a collaborative Databricks community within Blend.
• Coordinate with Databricks counterparts on technical enablement, certifications, and emerging platform capabilities.
• Turn successful engagements into repeatable offerings, demonstrations, case studies, and thought leadership.

Executive Engagement and Go-to-Market Alignment

• Advise client CTOs, CIOs, CDOs, and business leaders on data and AI strategy, platform modernization, and adoption priorities.
• Explain architectural tradeoffs in terms of business value, implementation effort, cost, risk, and time to value.
• Partner with Blend's practice and alliance leaders to align technical investments with client demand and joint Databricks opportunities.
• Represent Blend in client workshops, partner discussions, and relevant industry events.

Qualifications & Requirements

Required

• 15+ years of experience in data, platform, or cloud architecture, including at least five years focused on Databricks, modern data platforms, or related solution engineering and technical pre-sales.
• Deep hands-on Databricks experience, with a track record of designing and delivering enterprise production solutions.
• Strong expertise in Apache Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Databricks SQL, and batch and streaming architectures, with practical Python and SQL skills.
• Experience with Databricks data engineering and orchestration capabilities, including Lakeflow, and the design of reliable, governed data pipelines.
• Hands-on experience designing and delivering AI and agentic solutions on Databricks, using capabilities such as Agent Bricks, Mosaic AI Model Serving, Vector Search, and Genie for document retrieval, conversational analytics, and business workflow automation.
• Experience connecting agents to enterprise data, tools, and APIs through MCP and Unity Catalog functions, with appropriate identity, permissions, and governance.
• Experience taking AI solutions into production, including MLflow evaluation and tracing, deployment through Databricks Apps or serving endpoints, and security, monitoring, and cost controls through Unity Catalog and Unity Gateway.
• Strong cloud architecture experience on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud, including identity, networking, storage, security, and deployment automation.
• Experience leading data platform migrations or modernization programs, including architecture, workload transition, performance, and cost considerations.
• Demonstrated success working alongside sales teams and engaging directly with senior client executives.
• Experience collaborating with Databricks field teams on joint opportunities and technical solution development.
• A background in consulting, professional services, or an embedded technology partner role.

Preferred

• Relevant Databricks professional certifications, including data engineering, machine learning, or generative AI.
• Experience with enterprise governance, data sharing, federation, and open table formats.
• Familiarity with Databricks partner programs, Marketplace, and the development of repeatable industry solutions.
• Experience establishing technical communities, mentoring senior practitioners, and developing reusable delivery assets.

Who You Are

• You ask practical questions about value, scale, cost, security, and delivery before committing to an approach.
• You communicate clearly, hold informed views, and update them when better evidence emerges.
• You earn credibility through technical depth and collaborative problem-solving, helping clients and teams reach sound decisions and deliver working solutions.

Additional Information

The starting pay range for this role is $260k - $275k. Actual compensation within the range will be dependent on several factors including but not limited to relevant experience, skills, certifications, training, and location. It is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range and determining factors for compensation are considered for each individual circumstance.

BLEND360 offers a competitive benefits program designed to support the health and financial well-being of our team members and their families. Benefits vary by role and eligibility and may include medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k) plan, paid time off, paid holidays, commuter benefits, flexible spending accounts, life and disability insurance, and employee assistance programs.

#LI-AJ1