Principal Solutions Architect (Databricks)

Principal Solutions Architect (Databricks) Company overview: Blue Orange Digital is a data engineering and AI consultancy that builds production-grade data platforms, ML systems, and analytics solutions for companies that take their data seriously. We are not a staff augmentation shop or a slide-deck consultancy. We are builders. Our teams embed directly into client engineering organizations, shipping code alongside their engineers to accelerate delivery and build lasting capability. Our clients include Fortune 500 enterprises and high-growth startups across industries. We partner with Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, GCP, and Azure to deliver battle-tested solutions that drive measurable ROI. About the Role We are hiring the person who owns Databricks at Blue Orange Digital. Not a portion of it. All of it. This role sits at the intersection of three things most companies split across three people. You architect the solution in the room with the prospect, you lead the build on the accounts that matter most, and you own the relationship with Databricks itself. That combination is deliberate. Clients buy from the architect who will actually be on their engagement, and Databricks field teams co-sell with partners whose technical leads they trust. One person carrying all three closes the gap between what we promise in the sales cycle and what we ship in production. Day to day, you sit in discovery calls and technical deep-dives translating messy business problems into Lakehouse architectures that hold up under scrutiny. You write the architecture sections of our proposals and defend them to client CTOs and platform teams. When a deal closes on a major account, you stay on it as lead architect through design and into production, then hand off a system the client’s team can run without us. The partnership half of the job puts you in front of Databricks account executives, solutions architects, and partner managers across regions. You build the co-sell motion, drive our tier and specialization roadmap, and make Blue Orange Digital the partner Databricks reps call first when an account needs implementation help. You will also raise the Databricks bar across our engineering org through internal enablement, certification paths, and reusable architecture patterns. You will report to our Head of Delivery and work directly with the CEO and Head of Sales on partnership strategy. This is a senior seat with real authority over a growing part of the business. What You Will Do Pre-Sales Solutions Architecture Lead technical discovery on Databricks opportunities, running architecture sessions with client engineering and data leadership Design Lakehouse reference architectures covering Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, workflow orchestration, and Mosaic AI, sized to the client’s data volume, governance posture, and cost constraints Own the technical content in proposals and SOWs, including architecture diagrams, migration approach, team composition, and effort estimates Run proof-of-concept builds and technical bake-offs that demonstrate working code, not slideware Serve as the technical authority in competitive evaluations against Snowflake, Microsoft Fabric, and in-house Spark platforms, presenting trade-offs honestly rather than selling past the truth Partner with Sales on qualification, flagging deals where Databricks is the wrong answer before we invest in a proposal Delivery Leadership on Key Accounts Act as lead architect on our largest Databricks engagements, staying accountable from kickoff through production handoff Set the technical direction for engagement teams of three to six engineers, reviewing designs and code against Blue Orange Digital delivery standards Resolve the hard problems: Spark performance tuning, Delta Lake optimization, Unity Catalog migration and governance design, cost runaway, and streaming architectures under real SLAs Drive knowledge transfer so client teams operate what we build independently after handoff Own escalations on strategic accounts and keep executive stakeholders informed with direct, unvarnished status Databricks Channel Partnership Ownership Serve as the primary technical relationship owner with Databricks field, partner, and product teams Build and run the co-sell motion, generating partner-sourced pipeline and supporting Databricks-sourced opportunities end to end Drive our partner tier advancement and Brickbuilder specialization roadmap, including the certification coverage and validated customer references each level requires Represent Blue Orange Digital at Data + AI Summit, partner enablement sessions, and regional Databricks events Produce technical marketing that earns credibility with the Databricks field: reference architectures, benchmarks, case studies, and conference talks Build internal enablement so our engineers reach and maintain Databricks certification, and so every engagement team starts from proven patterns instead of a blank page What You Bring Eight or more years in data engineering, data architecture, or platform engineering, with at least four years architecting on Databricks in production environments Solutions Architect level depth on the Databricks platform. You can whiteboard a multi-workspace Unity Catalog governance model, explain when Photon earns its cost, diagnose a skewed join from a Spark UI screenshot, and reason about Delta Lake file layout and liquid clustering under real workloads Hands-on command of Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Databricks Workflows, Delta Live Tables, MLflow, and Mosaic AI, plus fluency in at least one major cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and infrastructure as code Demonstrated pre-sales experience. You have led technical discovery, authored proposal architecture, and won deals against credible competition Delivery track record on enterprise engagements, including at least one large-scale migration to Databricks from a legacy warehouse, Hadoop, or a homegrown Spark platform Executive communication skills. You hold your own with a CTO on strategy in one meeting and pair with a platform engineer on a notebook in the next Experience working with or inside a technology partner ecosystem, whether at a consultancy, an SI, or a cloud or data platform vendor Willingness to travel roughly 25 percent for client work, partner meetings, and industry events Nice to Haves Databricks Solutions Architect Champion accreditation, or the Data Engineer Professional, ML Engineer Professional, or Platform Architect certifications Prior experience at Databricks, or at a Gold or Platinum tier Databricks consulting partner Track record building a partner practice from early stage to a named tier or specialization Production GenAI and agent work on Databricks, including RAG systems, Vector Search, Model Serving, and agent evaluation Snowflake depth alongside Databricks, so you can advise clients running both platforms Public technical presence: conference talks, published reference architectures, open source contributions, or a following in the Databricks community Vertical depth in PE, financial services, healthcare, retail, or manufacturing How We Measure Success First 90 days : Ramped on our active Databricks engagements, introduced to the Databricks partner team, leading technical discovery on live opportunities First 6 months : Owning the architecture on our largest Databricks account, running a defined co-sell motion, internal certification program underway First 12 months : Measurable partner-sourced pipeline, a documented advance on tier or specialization, and a Databricks practice that scales past any single person Compensation Base salary plus a partnership performance bonus tied to Databricks-sourced pipeline and closed revenue. We benchmark Principal-level architect compensation against the top of the consulting market and pay for the credential, not the title. What We Offer Competitive base plus a bonus directly tied to the partnership you build Full ownership of a growing practice, with executive support and no layers between you and the decision-makers Work on production Databricks problems at real enterprise scale, across industries Builder culture where engineers lead and ship, and where architecture decisions are made by people who write code Professional development budget with certification support, conference attendance, and speaking opportunities Flexible remote work environment Collaborative team that values production-grade craftsmanship over billable theater Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) Paid parental/bereavement leave Background checks may be required for certain positions/projects. Blue Orange Digital is an equal-opportunity employer. Department RevGen Locations Multiple locations Remote status Fully Remote Yearly salary $245,000 About Blue Orange Digital Blue Orange Digital is a data and AI consulting firm that helps companies turn complex data into real business outcomes. We partner with organizations across industries to design and deploy scalable data infrastructure, advanced analytics, and AI-powered solutions. Our team is fully remote, globally distributed, and driven by curiosity, impact, and innovation.