[Hiring] Databricks Administrator @General Dynamics Information Technology

Role Description

The Databricks Administrator will be responsible for the administration, configuration, optimization, and support of our Databricks platform. This role will work closely with data engineers, data scientists, analytics teams, and IT security to ensure a secure, reliable, and high-performing environment for data processing, machine learning, and analytics workloads.

Meaningful Work and Personal Impact

• Platform Administration & Operations:
  • Administer and maintain Databricks workspaces across development, test, and production environments.
  • Configure and manage clusters, pools, jobs, and workflows to support ETL, streaming, and ML workloads.
  • Monitor platform health, capacity, and performance; proactively identify and resolve issues.
  • Manage Databricks runtime versions, libraries, and integrations with cloud storage and data services.
  • Implement and maintain backup, recovery, and business continuity procedures for Databricks assets.
• Security, Governance & Compliance:
  • Configure and maintain identity and access management (IAM) roles, groups, and permissions in Databricks.
  • Implement and enforce security best practices, including encryption, network controls, and data access policies.
  • Collaborate with security and compliance teams to ensure adherence to organizational and regulatory requirements.
  • Support implementation of data governance standards (e.g., Unity Catalog, catalogs, schemas, tables, and permissions).
• Performance & Cost Optimization:
  • Optimize cluster configurations, autoscaling, and job scheduling to balance performance and cost.
  • Analyze usage metrics and costs; implement strategies for cost control and chargeback/showback where applicable.
  • Recommend and implement platform tuning and optimization strategies for large-scale data workloads.
• Collaboration & Support:
  • Partner with data engineers, analysts, and data scientists to understand workload requirements and recommend best practices in Databricks usage.
  • Provide Tier 2/3 support for Databricks-related incidents and service requests.
  • Develop and maintain platform documentation, runbooks, and standard operating procedures.
  • Conduct user onboarding, training, and knowledge-sharing sessions on Databricks capabilities and best practices.
• Automation & DevOps:
  • Automate workspace and cluster provisioning, configuration, and policy enforcement using Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform, ARM/Bicep, CloudFormation).
  • Integrate Databricks with CI/CD pipelines for code deployment and environment management.
  • Support version control best practices for notebooks, jobs, and configuration.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.
• If the candidate does not possess a relevant four-year degree, an additional four years of relevant work experience will be required.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience administering cloud-based data platforms or big data environments.
• Hands-on administration experience with Databricks (Azure Databricks / AWS Databricks / GCP Databricks – specify as needed).
• Strong understanding of:
  • Databricks workspaces, clusters, jobs, pools, and notebooks.
  • Cloud storage (e.g., Azure Data Lake Storage, S3, GCS) and networking concepts.
  • Identity and access management in the relevant cloud provider (Azure AD / IAM / etc.).
  • Experience with scripting and automation (e.g., Python, PowerShell, Bash).
  • Familiarity with Spark concepts (clusters, executors, jobs, partitions) and performance considerations.
  • Demonstrated experience monitoring and troubleshooting platform performance and reliability issues.
  • Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
  • Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Customer-focused mindset with a commitment to reliability and service quality.
  • Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, agile environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Databricks certification(s) (e.g., Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate/Professional, Lakehouse Fundamentals, Administrator).
• Experience with:
  • Unity Catalog and fine-grained data access controls.
  • CI/CD tools (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, etc.).
  • Infrastructure as Code (Terraform strongly preferred).
  • Log aggregation and monitoring tools (Azure Monitor, CloudWatch, Datadog, Splunk, etc.).
  • Knowledge of Delta Lake, structured streaming, and data Lakehouse architectures.
  • Experience in enterprise environments with strong security and compliance needs.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits and wellness packages.
• 401K with company match.
• Competitive pay and paid time off.
• Full flex work weeks where possible.
• Variety of paid time off plans, including vacation, sick and personal time, holidays, paid parental, military, bereavement, and jury duty leave.
• 15 days of paid leave per calendar year for vacations, personal business, and illness.
• 10 paid holidays per year.
• Paid Family Leave program providing up to 160 hours of paid leave in a rolling 12 month period for eligible employees.
• Short and long-term disability benefits, life, accidental death and dismemberment, personal accident, critical illness, and business travel and accident insurance.