Staff Software Engineer - Distributed Data Systems

The job

LIVE Employer public job feed (private-sector employer) Source: the employer's public careers feed · Data: listed 2023-04-13

Job description

P-186

At Databricks, we are obsessed with enabling data teams to solve the world's toughest problems, from security threat detection to cancer drug development. We do this by building and running the world's best data and AI infrastructure platform, so our customers can focus on the high value challenges that are central to their own missions.

Founded in 2013 by the original creators of Apache Spark™, Databricks has grown from a tiny corner office in Berkeley, California to a global organization with over 1000 employees. Thousands of organizations, from small to Fortune 100, trust Databricks with their mission-critical workloads, making us one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the world.

Our engineering teams build highly technical products that fulfill real, important needs in the world. We constantly push the boundaries of data and AI technology, while simultaneously operating with the resilience, security and scale that is critical to making customers successful on our platform.

We develop and operate one of the largest scale software platforms. The fleet consists of millions of virtual machines, generating terabytes of logs and processing exabytes of data per day. At our scale, we regularly observe cloud hardware, network, and operating system faults, and our software must gracefully shield our customers from any of the above.

Modern data analysis employs sophisticated methods such as machine learning that go well beyond the roll-up and drill-down capabilities of traditional SQL query engines. As a software engineer on the Runtime team at Databricks, you will be building the next generation distributed data storage and processing systems that can outperform specialized SQL query engines in relational query performance, yet provide the expressiveness and programming abstractions to support diverse workloads ranging from ETL to data science.

Below are some example projects:

Apache Spark™: Develop the de facto open source standard framework for big data.

Data Plane Storage: Deliver reliable and high performance services and client libraries for storing and accessing humongous amount of data on cloud storage backends, e.g., AWS S3, Azure Blob Store.

Delta Lake: A storage management system that combines the scale and cost-efficiency of data lakes, the performance and reliability of a data warehouse, and the low latency of streaming. Its higher level abstractions and guarantees, including ACID transactions and time travel, drastically simplify the complexity of real-world data engineering architecture.

Delta Pipelines: It's difficult to manage even a single data engineering pipeline. The goal of the Delta Pipelines project is to make it simple and possible to orchestrate and operate tens of thousands of data pipelines. It provides a higher level abstraction for expressing data pipelines and enables customers to deploy, test & upgrade pipelines and eliminate operational burdens for managing and building high quality data pipelines.

Performance Engineering: Build the next generation query optimizer and execution engine that's fast, tuning free, scalable, and robust.

What we look for:

• BS in Computer Science, related technical field or equivalent practical experience.
• Optional: MS or PhD in databases, distributed systems.
• Comfortable working towards a multi-year vision with incremental deliverables.
• Driven by delivering customer value and impact.
• 8+ years of production level experience in either Java, Scala or C++.
• Strong foundation in algorithms and data structures and their real-world use cases.
• Experience with distributed systems, databases, and big data systems (Apache Spark™, Hadoop).

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.

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.

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Field: Technology Sub-niche: Software engineering All jobs at Databricks Jobs in California Jobs in Mountain View, CA California state guide

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About the role

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The city

Mountain View, CA is not one of the cities with its own page in our guides, so here is the state: California.

The state economy in brief

California is in the West region (Pacific division) and has 39,287,376 residents (the 1st largest of the 50 states and DC by population), with a median age of 37.9. Its economy produced about $4,438,822 million in the latest four quarters (BEA), 1st among states and DC, equal to $112,983 per resident.

Jobs and the labour market

The unemployment rate was 5.1% in 2026M09, which is 49th lowest of 51 (1st is the lowest). Employers had job openings equal to 3.6% of employment, 37th highest of 51, a measure of how hard it is to hire. The median wage across all occupations is $58,240 a year ($28.00 an hour), 14% above the national median ($58,240 against $50,980).

What people do and what it pays

The occupations with the most jobs in California are Home Health and Personal Care Aides (970,150 jobs, median $34,320); Fast Food and Counter Workers (449,840 jobs, median $42,280); Retail Salespersons (376,460 jobs, median $38,440); Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand (355,500 jobs, median $44,710); Registered Nurses (338,940 jobs, median $140,270). Among occupations with at least 2,000 jobs, the best paid are Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers (median $353,900); Psychiatrists (median $353,500); General Internal Medicine Physicians (median $313,890). Compared with the nation, the state is most specialised in farming, fishing, and forestry (4.1 times the national share of workers) and healthcare support (1.5 times the national share of workers).

Cost of living, taxes and workplace rules

Prices are above the national average in California: the regional price parity is 110.7 against 100 for the whole country (51st lowest of 51). Median gross rent is $2,036 a month and the median household income $99,122, so a year of rent equals 24.6% of income; the median home value is $734,700. The state minimum wage is $16.90 (the higher of state and federal rates applies to most workers). State income tax on wages: Graduated, top rate 13.30%. It is not a right-to-work state, so union contracts can require fees from covered workers. It runs a state paid family and medical leave programme.

People and commuting

27.0% of residents were born abroad and 37.1% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Among workers, 65.7% drive alone, 2.9% use public transit and 17.2% work from home; 19.4% commute 45 minutes or more.

State guide: California →

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Career paths

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Cybersecurity (713) Data, analytics and AI (3366) Cloud, IT and infrastructure (1040) Product management (836)

Distances

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The employer

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What it is like to work at a company (culture, schedules, benefits) is not in the source data, so we do not describe it. Read the description and ask the questions under "How to prepare".

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FAQ

What is the Staff Software Engineer - Distributed Data Systems job at Databricks?

A private-sector role in technology (software engineering) listed 1306 days ago. The full description is on this page and on the employer's page.

Where is this job?

Mountain View, CA.

How do I apply?

Use the "View this job and apply on the employer's page" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.

How much does it pay?

The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.

What is the cost of living there?

See the state or country guide for rent, income and taxes.

How old is this listing?

It was posted on 2023-04-13 (1306 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.

Are there similar jobs?

Yes: browse software engineering jobs in California.

Sources and terms

• Job data: Databricks careers page public feed (listing dated 2023-04-13). The job disappears from this site when it disappears from the source.
• Wages and projections: BLS OEWS (May 2025) and Employment Projections 2025–35.
• City and county figures: Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024, BEA, BLS QCEW and LAUS, NASA POWER climatology; distances from Census Gazetteer coordinates.

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Sources

• BLS OEWS (wages and employment by occupation, May 2025)
• BLS Employment Projections 2025–35
• BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics
• BLS JOLTS
• BLS State and Metro Area Employment
• Census Bureau American Community Survey (via Census Reporter)
• BEA GDP by state and Regional Price Parities
• IRS 2026 tax adjustments
• U.S. Department of Labor, minimum wage by state
• Tax Foundation state income tax rates 2026
• USAJOBS
• USCIS
• U.S. Department of State, visas
• NASA POWER climatology
• GeoNames / Census Gazetteer (coordinates)