Staff Partner Engineer, AI Partnerships
Databricks is hiring a Staff Partner Engineer, AI Partnerships in New York and San Francisco, United States. It pays $150k-$206k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Databricks.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this role Works on AI ●●●○: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- The posting mentions OpenAI, Claude and Anthropic among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a senior role.
- Databricks has 894 other open roles on Level.
AI in this role
Lead technical relationships and build AI platform integrations with strategic partners like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Gemini at Databricks.
RDQ427R534
At Databricks, we are passionate about enabling data teams to solve the world’s toughest problems — from making the next mode of transportation a reality to accelerating the development of medical breakthroughs. We do this by building and running the world’s best data and AI infrastructure platform so our customers can use deep data insights to improve their business. Founded by engineers — and customer obsessed — we leap at every opportunity to tackle technical challenges, from designing next-gen UI/UX for interfacing with data to scaling our services and infrastructure across millions of virtual machines. And we're only getting started.
About the Role
We're looking for a Partner Engineer to lead the technical relationship between Databricks and our strategic AI partnerships - including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google Gemini. You'll own the joint roadmap with their product teams, drive the development of integrations that connect and extend both platforms, and get hands-on with new product features and tooling. You'll collaborate with partners to build POCs that become new products, demos, and hands-on labs - and ultimately the architectures our customers deploy. With direct visibility and engagement with our founders and executives, this high impact role sits in Partner Engineering and works closely with Product, Engineering, Strategic Partnerships and Global GTM teams.
Impact you will have
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact across the AI labs, building relationships with senior product and engineering stakeholders to drive joint innovation.
- Work alongside our technical executives to shape the joint product roadmap by translating partner capabilities and integration needs into Databricks platform requirements
- Navigate complex relationships in order to align on joint product offerings that address the needs of Databricks, our partner organizations, and our customers.
- Design and build the integrations that connect and extend both platforms, serving as the hands-on technical expert and early validator of new capabilities.
- Build POCs and reference architectures that hand off cleanly to engineering teams to productize, or to customers to deploy.
- Work with our most strategic customers to align their AI architecture and roadmap needs with what Databricks and our partners are building.
- Develop and maintain technical field enablement content to equip internal & external field teams with the knowledge and tools to deliver joint architectures and articulate differentiated 'better together' value propositions.
What we're looking for
- 10+ years in field engineering, consulting, platform architecture, or AI systems development, with the ability to master new technologies quickly while managing multiple partners.
- Depth in how AI systems are built and run in production, across model serving, inference, retrieval, and agent frameworks, and an understanding of how AI products are developed, delivered, and adopted.
- Hands-on engineering skills, with the ability to develop POCs, build demos, and debug integrations that hold up in front of partner engineering teams and customers. Experience with Python and REST APIs and SDKs.
- Established existing relationships within the product and engineering functions of major AI labs and cloud providers.
- Experience in strategic technical partnerships, navigating multi-company engineering initiatives, building consensus across organizations, and leading architectural discussions with clarity.
- Deep knowledge of the Databricks platform and the ability to design AI architectures that span it and a partner's products.
- Communication and influence skills, with the ability to present to engineering teams and executives, and to translate between Product, Engineering, and partner teams.
- Availability to travel globally to partner sites, conferences, and events as required.
Preferred
- Prior experience in Partner Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineering, or Alliance Engineering roles at AI companies, cloud providers, global system integrators, or major enterprise software companies, with a track record of driving product-to-product integrations.
- Experience taking AI systems to production at enterprise scale, including evaluation, cost and performance tuning, and the security and governance requirements that gate deployment.
- Background working at or with a frontier lab or AI-native cloud provider, including an understanding of how they build, ship, and go to market.
- Track record of creating technical content that developers use, including reference architectures, deployment guides, blog posts, and conference presentations.
- Strong familiarity with modern development workflows and AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex.
Pay Range Transparency
Databricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here.
Zone 1 Pay Range$150,200—$206,450 USD
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.
How we rate this
Staff Partner Engineer, AI Partnerships at Databricks rates 75 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where partner engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where integration architecture was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where technical leadership was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where product strategy was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where poc development was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Partner Engineering, Integration Architecture, Technical Leadership, Product Strategy, and Poc Development. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.
Want an expert to read your CV for this job?
Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. We reply by email within 2 to 4 business days.
Get new sales jobs (Works on AI ●●●○ or higher) by email
One email a week with the new sales jobs (Works on AI ●●●○ or higher), each rated for how much AI is in the work. No recruiter spam, unsubscribe in one click.
Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click.
Similar roles
Sales roles that work on AI, at other companies.
What kind of AI work fits you?
Answer 12 practical questions in about three minutes. Get a simple profile, the work it points to, and live roles to explore next.
Find my next step