This role asks for four things that rarely sit in one person: the discipline of an operator who tracks every applicant and commitment without dropping one, the hands of a builder who is genuinely fluent in AI and can talk to a founder as a peer, the ease of someone who earns the trust of founders and the partners at the best venture firms in the country, and the judgment to turn all of that into strategy for how Databricks wins the next generation of companies. Most strong candidates have two of these, and some have three. We are hiring for trajectory: you should already be strong in the operating and the building, and hungry to grow into relationships and strategy. This is one of the rare seats where operating, building, and relationship-building are the same job.
The impact you will have
Run the startup program: Own the day-to-day operations of the program, including applicant intake, evaluation, scoring, routing, and offer decisions, with precise tracking of every applicant, commitment, and outcome. Run it on AI automation built with Databricks AI tooling such as Omnigent, Unity Gateway, Agent Bricks, etc. Strong, hands-on proficiency with these tools is a requirement, not just knowing your way around them.
Bring programmatic discipline: Own the trackers, the automation, the quality bar, and the follow-through so that nothing falls through the cracks.
Be technical with founders: Hold real technical conversations with early-stage founders about their models, agents, data, and automation, and where Databricks and Neon fit. Earn their trust by being credible on the technology, not by pitching.
Build and prototype: Build the automation and internal tooling that runs the program, and stay hands-on with the same AI tools founders use, so you can assess their technical ideas from a place of experience. This is developer relations at its most technical: close to the code and close to the builders.
Assess and translate: Assess each founder's technical capability and the strength of their idea, and carry what you learn back to Product and to Databricks Ventures.
Run founder and investor events: Design and run a regular calendar of founder and investor gatherings in San Francisco, including dinners, workshops, office hours, and demo-day tie-ins. Partner with the events and platform teams at leading venture firms to co-produce these gatherings, and build durable relationships with those teams that deepen over time.
Represent Databricks in the ecosystem: Show up as a founder-first, technically credible presence at founder and investor events, and grow into being one of the faces of Databricks across the venture community.
Grow into ownership: Work alongside Databricks Ventures on how we engage founders across the full arc of their journey, from a first look at their technology and ideas to whatever they build next, and grow into broader ownership of the startup function as you build trust and results.
What we look for
This is a rare combination, and we know it. We are hiring for trajectory as much as for a finished resume: the strongest candidates are already strong on the first three and eager to grow into the rest.
Genuinely technical with AI. You build. You can prototype an automation, reason about an agent architecture, and get into the details of a founder's stack without hand-waving.
A programmatic operator with an obsessive eye for detail. You run complex, multi-track programs without dropping a thread.
The developer-relations instinct. You earn credibility with builders by being one, and you can explain and teach hard technical ideas clearly.
Comfortable around early-stage founders and investors, and ready to build relationships with top venture firms, starting with their events teams and growing toward their partners.
Experience helping design and run events that people actually want to attend.
Comfort switching between hands-on technical work, operational execution, and strategic thinking in the same day.
Based in San Francisco. This role requires regular in-person time with founders and investors in the Bay Area.
Empathy for founders and a long view of their careers. You understand that a founder's first company is rarely their last.
Nice to have: a background as a founder, an early engineer, or a forward-deployed or solutions engineer; experience in B2B SaaS, AI and data infrastructure, or developer ecosystems.
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
$118,900—$163,450 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.
