Sr Staff Production Engineer- Public Sector

About Databricks

At Databricks, we are passionate about enabling data 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 — and customer obsessed — we leap at every opportunity to solve technical challenges, from designing next-gen UI/UX for interfacing with data to scaling our services and infrastructure across millions of virtual machines. And we're only getting started.

The Role

At Databricks, we don’t just use the cloud; we are "cloud maximalists." Unlike most companies that treat multi-cloud as a backup strategy, we run our platform across every region of every major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, and GCP) simultaneously. This creates a massive, high-consequence engineering surface area that requires a unique breed of Production Engineer.

In this role, you won’t just run our cloud environments; you will own and evolve the secure infrastructure, access patterns, and guardrails that keep Databricks’ global platform safe and compliant in production. You will be responsible for the "sovereign layer" of our infrastructure, ensuring that our Data Intelligence Platform operates with 100% reliability and security in highly regulated, air-gapped, and sovereign environments. If you are an engineer who views infrastructure as a software problem and thrives on the complexity of global-scale networking, IAM, and automation, this is your team.

The Impact You’ll Have

Security-Focused Cloud Operations

• Design, automate, and operate the IAM, account/subscription, and project lifecycle across AWS, Azure, and GCP, enforcing least-privilege and standardized access patterns at scale.
• Review, implement, and continuously improve cloud identity and access policies (IAM, Okta, Opal) to align with Databricks security standards and audit requirements.

Production Engineering & Automation

• Build and maintain reliable, observable automation and tooling to apply cloud changes (roles, policies, accounts, networking) safely and repeatedly.
• Treat operational and security issues as software problems: eliminate toil, drive root-cause analysis, and codify fixes into infrastructure and tooling.

Security Data Pipelines & Compliance

• Own and improve security and audit logging data pipelines from cloud providers into our internal systems, ensuring timely, accurate data for detection, investigations, and audits.
• Partner with Security, Compliance, and Audit teams to provide evidence, clarifications, and policy updates that keep our environments aligned with evolving standards.

Regulated & Specialized Environments

• Operate and improve specialized, highly regulated environments (e.g., FedRAMP / GovCloud) including release management, patching cadences, and supporting secure access workflows (e.g., SAW).
• Ensure high availability and resiliency for critical security and access infrastructure across these environments.

On-Call & Incident Response

• Participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation for high-severity incidents impacting cloud accounts, IAM, or security data pipelines.
• Act as a key partner to product engineering, security engineering, and field teams during incidents to restore service and harden systems for the future.

What We Look For

• Required: Candidates must hold a current TS/SCI clearance (either active or currently held in an editable/re-activatable status within the 2-year window).
  • Nice to have: Possession of a current polygraph (Counterintelligence or Full Scope) is highly desired and considered a significant plus.
• Education- BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience: 12+ years of experience, including leading the strategy for cloud IAM, account architecture, or security-critical infrastructure across multiple environments or business units.
• Cloud & Infrastructure Expertise
  • Deep hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP) in areas such as IAM, networking, accounts/subscriptions/projects, and audit logging.
  • Strong background in Infrastructure-as-Code and automation (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, or similar) and CI/CD for infrastructure changes.
• Security & Compliance Mindset
  • Proven experience working in or with security-sensitive or regulated environments (e.g., SOC2, FedRAMP, ISO 27001, financial services, public sector) and translating requirements into concrete technical controls.
  • Familiarity with access review processes, policy baselines, and audit evidence for cloud environments.
• Operational Excellence
  • Demonstrated success running high-availability, security-critical services, including on-call responsibilities and incident management.
  • Strong debugging and problem-solving skills across distributed systems, with the ability to navigate ambiguous issues spanning multiple teams and platforms.

Bonus

• Experience with Okta, Opal, or similar identity/access tooling.
• Background operating secure admin workstations (SAW) or comparable hardened access patterns.
• Experience migrating cloud accounts or subscriptions during M&A or large-scale reorganizations.