Staff Backline Engineer - Platform

P-1399

At Databricks, we are passionate about enabling Data & AI teams to solve the world's toughest problems - from making the next mode of transportation a reality to accelerating the development of medical breakthroughs. We do this by building and running the world's best data and AI infrastructure platform so our customers can use deep data insights to improve their business. Founded by engineers, we leap at every opportunity to tackle technical challenges, from designing next-gen UI/UX for data interaction to scaling our services and infrastructure across millions of virtual machines. And we're only getting started.

About the Team:

The Backline Engineering Team serves as the critical bridge between Frontline Support and Engineering. We handle complex technical issues and escalations across the Data and AI ecosystem. With a strong focus on customer success, we are committed to delivering exceptional customer satisfaction by providing deep technical expertise, proactive issue resolution, and continuous platform improvements. We emphasize automation and tooling to enhance troubleshooting efficiency, reduce manual efforts, and improve the overall supportability of the platform and the health of our products. By developing smart solutions and streamlining workflows, we drive operational excellence and ensure a delightful experience for both customers and internal teams.

What your impact will be:

• Act as the ultimate technical escalation point, driving the resolution of the most complex, high-stakes customer issues on the Databricks Platform through deep analysis of core components, metrics, and logs.


• Elevate global team competency by architecting standardized troubleshooting methodologies, comprehensive runbooks, and leading deep-dive technical enablement sessions.


• Champion product supportability and observability, by actively partnering with Engineering and Product teams to influence the roadmap and integrate critical feedback.


• Spearhead strategic automation and tooling initiatives, driving programs that significantly reduce manual toil and improve global MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution) metrics.


• Act as the primary technical liaison between Support and Engineering, driving the enablement strategy for upcoming product features, architectures, and releases.


• Lead cross-functional incident response, demonstrating deep ownership and coordinating seamlessly across Engineering, Escalation, and Support teams to resolve critical requests.


• Participate in weekday and weekend on-call rotations to ensure continuous coverage.

What we look for:

We are looking for candidates who demonstrate deep mastery of one of the following and related areas:

• Application Debugging: Deep expertise in troubleshooting, supporting, and maintaining complex Java, Scala, or Python-based applications


• Big Data Ecosystems: Advanced proficiency in managing, tuning, and resolving issues within distributed computing environments, with a strong emphasis on Apache Spark™ , Hadoop or other Distributed Systems


• Database Management: Proficient at debugging, tuning, and resolving issues in SQL-based relational databases, preferably Postgres


• Automation & Tooling: Advanced proficiency in building automation frameworks and system scripts using Python or bash/shell


• Infrastructure & Networking: Deep foundation in Linux system administration, kernel-level troubleshooting, and complex network diagnostics (e.g., TCP/IP Stack, DNS, routing, packet capture analysis)


• Cloud Skills: Extensive hands-on experience debugging, optimizing, and supporting highly scalable workloads across major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)


• Expert-level diagnostic skills, with a proven track record of pinpointing root causes in highly complex systems through advanced black-box and system-level troubleshooting


• 12+ years of highly technical industry experience in technical support, sustaining engineering or similar roles.


• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related fields.