Sr. Deployment Strategist, FDE - Manufacturing & High-Tech
Databricks · United States · Professional Services Operations · listed September 21, 2026
The shape of it
Seniority
Senior
Experience asked
7+ years
Where
On site
Stated pay
$219,765 – $302,220 USD
Requirements listed
5
Length
1,066 words
In the posting’s own words
You will be part of the founding team, embedded with our most strategic customers from the very first sales call, all the way through to a production-ready solution. You will be the "product manager" for the customer's problem, responsible for the "why" and "what," while our FDEs (Engineers) will be your partners responsible for the "how."
What it asks for · 5
- Executive Presence & Communication: You are a trusted advisor with strong executive presence and excellent communication skills. You are confident and humble, can build rapport quickly, and can help senior stakeholders make difficult decisions.
- Product Judgment & Delivery: You can define what to build and why, write strong product requirements, prioritize engineering work, manage scope, and lead complex agile software projects from an ambiguous problem to a measurable outcome.
- Technical Fluency & Architecture Judgment: You understand modern data and AI architectures, including cloud platforms, data pipelines, data models, distributed systems, APIs, security and governance, machine learning, and generative AI application patterns. You can lead architecture discussions, evaluate trade-offs, and pressure-test technical decisions.
- Hands-on Technical Ability: You are proficient in at least one language such as Python, Java, or SQL. You can explore data, work in notebooks, read and review code and pipelines, build or adapt prototypes, and contribute meaningfully to troubleshooting.
- Relevant Experience: Typically 7+ years of experience delivering complex, customer-facing data, analytics, AI, or software engagements, or equivalent experience as a founder or technical builder. You have helped deliver data, machine learning, or generative AI systems into production and understand the integration, operational, and adoption challenges that appear in real environments. Experience in a high-growth technology company, forward-deployed organization, or leading consultancy is valuable. You enjoy working onsite with customers (often 25-50%, sometimes higher) to drive delivery.
What the job covers
- C-Suite Scoping & Value Definition: Partner with Sales to perform deep discovery, map the customer's organization, quantify the business value of $10M+ problems, and define the pilot, including its MVP, success criteria, and timeline.
- End-to-End Product Ownership: Author the PRD, prioritize the engineering backlog, manage scope, and act as the primary hands-on QA tester. Translate business requirements into clear data, integration, security, and operational requirements that engineers can build against.
- Technical Solution Leadership & Delivery: Drive the FDE build team through an agile delivery process, manage stakeholders from the C-suite to individual engineers, and unblock technical or organizational issues. Lead technical discovery and design reviews. Understand the customer's data flows, integrations, platform constraints, and operational environment; pressure-test architecture choices; and identify technical risks early.
- Solution Launch & Landing: Own the "Day 0" launch, manage the war room, and drive the solution from launch to full adoption by capturing user feedback, iterating, and proving the defined business value. Own production readiness across data quality, testing, security, performance, and operations. Work with the team to diagnose issues and drive them to resolution.
- Strategic Handoff & Growth: Scope the ongoing maintenance plan, create customer documentation/training, and leverage your trusted advisor status to identify the next high-value FDE engagement. Codify reusable solution patterns and bring field insights back to Product and Engineering.
Tools and skills named
Ways of working
- Agile2×
- Technical writing
- Testing
Languages
- Java
- Python
- SQL
Security & compliance
- Security3×
Data
- Data pipelines
- Databricks
Models & research
- Machine learning2×
Product & design
- Product management2×
Cloud & infra
- Distributed systems
Words the posting leans on
- technical13×
- data9×
- product9×
- customer8×
- solution8×
- build6×
- fde6×
- architecture5×
- delivery5×
- discovery5×
- engineering5×
- manage5×
- business4×
- drive4×
- experience4×
- launch4×
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