Senior Solutions Architect (Africa/MEA Fly-in)

At Databricks, our core values are at the heart of everything we do; creating a culture of proactiveness and a customer‑centric mindset guides us to create a unified platform that makes data science and analytics accessible to everyone. We aim to inspire our customers to make informed decisions that push their business forward. We provide a user‑friendly and intuitive platform that makes it easy to turn insights into action and fosters a culture of creativity, experimentation, and continuous improvement.

As a Senior Solutions Architect in the IMEA Pre‑Sales team (MEA - Africa Fly‑in), you will be an essential part of this mission, using your technical expertise to demonstrate how our Data Intelligence Platform can help customers solve their complex data challenges. You’ll work with a collaborative, customer‑focused team that values innovation and creativity, using your skills to create customised solutions to help our customers achieve their goals and guide their businesses forward. Join us in our quest to change how people work with data and make a better world!

The impact you will have:

• Create impactful and successful relationships with customer accounts focused on South Africa, but in Africa in general, providing technical and business value to Databricks customers in collaboration with the extended team.
• Act as a trusted advisor to C‑level executives, defining long‑term Data & AI strategies, modernising platforms, and aligning technical vision with business outcomes to drive measurable impact and innovation.
• Lead strategic engagements across Africa, shaping Data & AI transformation roadmaps, fostering innovation partnerships, and driving account growth in alignment with Africa Vision.
• Scale best practices in your field by authoring reference architectures, how‑tos, and demo applications, and help build the Databricks community in your region by leading workshops, seminars, and meet‑ups.
• Grow your knowledge and expertise to the level of a technical and/or industry specialist.

What we look for:

• 8+ years of experience engaging in customer interactions for technical pre‑sales and complex sales lifecycles.
• Experience and expertise in enterprise engagements will be highly preferable for the role.
• Experienced in use case discovery, scoping, and delivering complex solution architecture designs to multiple audiences, requiring an ability to switch context and/or levels of technical depth.
• Ability to provide technical solutions for specialised customer needs, navigate a competitive landscape and influence C‑level executives by developing relationships and orchestrating teams to achieve long‑term customer success.
• Hands‑on expertise with complex Big Data architecture design for public cloud platform(s) solutions, focusing on use cases in Data Warehousing and Data Engineering architecture and implementation.
• Data Science and Machine Learning skills will be advantageous.
• Prior experience with coding in a core programming language (i.e., Python, SQL etc.) and willingness to learn Apache Spark™.
• Experience and skills on the Databricks platform will be highly advantageous for the role!

Key Notes:

• Location for the role can be in London or Paris (i.e., within a commutable distance of these office locations for hybrid schedule).
• You will need to be flexible and willing to travel to South Africa (and sometimes other countries in Africa) for customer visits on a regular basis (i.e., up to ~2 weeks per month).
• Willing to manage different conversations with Business and Technical stakeholders; Enabling Partners and support internal events in the MEA region.
• Excellent communication skills in English required as a minimum.

About Databricks:

Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé 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.

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.

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.