Databricks Lead (Staff IT Engineer)

Company:

Qualcomm Incorporated

Job Area:

Information Technology Group, Information Technology Group > IT Engineering

General Summary:

The Databricks Lead (Staff IT Engineer) is a hands-on technical leader responsible for designing, building, and operating enterprise-scale Databricks solutions. This role drives platform adoption, AI-native development practices, machine learning enablement, AIOps automation, and cloud modernization initiatives. The individual will lead technical delivery, mentor engineers, establish engineering standards, and ensure highly scalable, secure, and intelligent data and AI platforms.

This role requires full-time onsite work in San Diego, CA or Boulder, CO (5 days per week).

This role is not eligible for Qualcomm immigration sponsorship.

Key Responsibilities

Databricks Platform Leadership

• Design and implement scalable Lakehouse architectures using Databricks, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Workflows, and Serverless capabilities.
• Develop reusable platform frameworks, accelerators, and automation capabilities.
• Optimize platform performance, reliability, scalability, and cost efficiency.
• Drive platform modernization and cloud-native engineering best practices.

AI-Native Development

• Promote AI-assisted software engineering using Claude Code, GenAI, and automation frameworks.
• Develop AI-powered engineering workflows to improve developer productivity and quality.
• Implement intelligent code generation, testing automation, root-cause analysis, and deployment optimization.
• Establish best practices for AI-enabled SDLC and platform operations.

Machine Learning & AI Enablement

• Build and operationalize machine learning solutions using MLflow, Mosaic AI, Feature Engineering, and Model Serving.
• Support predictive analytics, anomaly detection, forecasting, and intelligent automation use cases.
• Implement model lifecycle management and MLOps practices.
• Collaborate with AI teams to enable enterprise AI workloads on Databricks.

AIOps & Reliability Engineering

• Implement observability, monitoring, and automated incident management solutions.
• Build AI-driven operational insights for proactive issue detection and remediation.
• Improve platform reliability through self-healing automation and intelligent alerting.
• Drive reduction in operational toil through automation.

Technical Leadership

• Lead technical design reviews and solution architecture discussions.
• Mentor engineers and establish coding, testing, and deployment standards.
• Drive engineering excellence through automation and reusable frameworks.

Required Qualifications

Experience

• 8–12 years of overall IT experience.
• 4–5 years of hands-on Databricks experience.
• Strong experience implementing enterprise cloud and AI platforms.

Technical Skills

• Databricks Platform
• Delta Lake
• Unity Catalog
• MLflow
• Mosaic AI
• Python, SQL, Spark
• Databricks Workflows
• REST APIs
• GitHub 
• CI/CD Automation
• AIOps and Observability Platforms
• Generative AI tools and frameworks

Leadership Competencies

• Technical mentoring
• Problem solving and innovation
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Continuous improvement mindset
• Strong communication skills

Success Metrics

• Platform availability and reliability
• AI adoption across engineering teams
• Reduction in operational incidents
• Deployment automation maturity
• ML use-case adoption
• Cost optimization and utilization efficiency

Minimum Qualifications:

• 4+ years of IT-related work experience with a Bachelor's degree.
OR
7+ years of IT-related work experience without a Bachelor’s degree.

*Completed advanced degrees in a relevant field may be substituted for up to two years (Master’s = one year, Doctorate = two years) of work experience.

Applicants: Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer. If you are an individual with a disability and need an accommodation during the application/hiring process, rest assured that Qualcomm is committed to providing an accessible process. You may e-mail disability-accomodations@qualcomm.com or call Qualcomm's toll-free number found here. Upon request, Qualcomm will provide reasonable accommodations to support individuals with disabilities to be able participate in the hiring process. Qualcomm is also committed to making our workplace accessible for individuals with disabilities. (Keep in mind that this email address is used to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. We will not respond here to requests for updates on applications or resume inquiries).

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EEO Employer: Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or any other protected classification.

Qualcomm expects its employees to abide by all applicable policies and procedures, including but not limited to security and other requirements regarding protection of Company confidential information and other confidential and/or proprietary information, to the extent those requirements are permissible under applicable law.

Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits:

$116,800.00 - $175,200.00

The above pay scale reflects the broad, minimum to maximum, pay scale for this job code for the location for which it has been posted. Even more importantly, please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Qualcomm.  We also offer a competitive annual discretionary bonus program and opportunity for annual RSU grants (employees on sales-incentive plans are not eligible for our annual bonus).  In addition, our highly competitive benefits package is designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that Qualcomm has to offer – and you can review more details about our US benefits at this link.

If you would like more information about this role, please contact Qualcomm Careers.