Sr. Manager, AI Forward Deployed Engineering

The Forward Deployed AI Engineering (AI FDE) team is a highly specialized customer-facing AI team at Databricks. We deliver professional services (PS) engagements to help our customers build and productionize first-of-its-kind AI applications with a focus on GenAI. We are looking for a world-class leader to lead and grow our AI FDE team in our Global Delivery Center (GDC). In this role, you will: Lead customers on their AI/ML transformation with Databricks. Push the boundaries of our product. Recruit and develop top AI engineers. Manage a portfolio of key accounts. You will report directly to our Global Delivery Center (GDC) Leader and dotted line to our AI FDE Global Leader. This role can be remote, with a preference for candidates located in Bangalore. Candidates should expect to travel once a month. The impact you will have: Lead and scale a world-class AI/ML professional services team, including hiring, mentoring, and building a team structure to support long-term growth and execution at scale. Develop and expand executive relationships with key customers and partners (including VP+, CIO/CDO-level stakeholders), acting as a trusted advisor during complex technical engagements and AI transformations. Align with Field Engineering and Sales Leaders to define joint strategies for strategic accounts and ensure strong delivery coordination across functions. Lead strategic AI PS initiatives, practice development, and standardized delivery processes; design scalable engagement models and reusable solutions for repeatability across the global team. Shape cross-functional collaboration by influencing Product, R&D, and GTM--ensuring voice-of-customer insights and delivery learnings help inform the product roadmap and GTM strategy. Own OKRs for AI-services led accounts, revenue, utilization, and public references. Represent Databricks as a thought leader in AI/ML. Qualifications Extensive experience managing, hiring, and building a team of high-performing data scientists/ML engineers and leaders. Ability to scope, guide, and sell technical engagements, manage escalations, and ensure successful delivery in enterprise environments. Deep technical expertise in ML, GenAI, and data science, and curiosity to continue to stay up-to-date in this ever-changing field. Experience leading teams building cutting-edge production ML solutions in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP). Proven success developing strategy with senior executive stakeholders to define program-level goals, align technical vision, and build trust throughout complex enterprise engagements. Develop and drive a strategic vision for AI transformations across our customers, including product management for applied AI projects, organizational change management for the adoption of AI, and mapping and aligning with key stakeholders. Demonstrated experience in cross-functional leadership roles, collaborating with Sales, Product, and GTM teams to drive business impact through AI/ML. "Company-first" mindset. Graduate degree in a quantitative discipline (Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Operations Research, etc.) or equivalent practical experience. Requirements Experience in a customer-facing consulting or professional services leadership role. Experience working with Databricks. 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, please visit [ https://www.mybenefitsnow.com/databricks ](https://www.mybenefitsnow.com/databricks) . Company Description Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide -- including Comcast, Conde Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 -- rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow.