Specialist Solutions Architect - Data Engineering

About the role

Databricks is looking for a Specialist Solutions Architect (SSA) for Data Engineering in Amsterdam. You will guide strategic customers in designing, building and optimizing production-grade data workloads on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, partnering with Account Teams and Solution Architects. The role is office-based with a hybrid schedule, up to 30% travel, and starts as a 12-month fixed-term contract, expected to convert to FTE after a successful probation.

Key responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end technical design, PoCs and workload sizing for strategic customers, acting as a trusted advisor to secure technical wins.
• Design, build and optimize scalable batch and streaming pipelines, operational data layers (Lakebase) and performance load testing on Databricks.
• Build and operationalize custom user-facing data applications with Databricks Apps.
• Use AI coding assistants, LLMs and agentic workflows (e.g. Genie Code, Cursor) to prototype, debug and deliver architectural assets.
• Mentor peers, share reusable architecture assets and deliver technical workshops and community presentations.

Required profile

• 5+ years in data or software engineering, with hands-on experience in distributed processing (Apache Spark, Delta Lake, SDP) and real-time streaming (Spark Streaming, Kafka, CDC).
• Daily use of AI coding tools and LLMs to speed up pipeline development and asset generation.
• 5+ years in pre-sales or post-sales technical consulting, managing customer engagements and multi-stakeholder discussions.
• Experience with operational data layers (Postgres/OLTP), low-latency serving, reverse ETL and hybrid transactional/analytical processing.
• Ability to travel up to 30% for customer visits, events and training.

Nice to have

• Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure or GCP and legacy data lake modernization (e.g. Hadoop migration).
• Background building specialized data applications such as risk modelling, fraud detection or customer lifetime value.
• Track record of community engagement, public speaking, open-source contributions or peer mentoring.