Principal Consultant – Databricks

About the Company

This is an established Microsoft-focused consultancy with close to 30 years of delivery behind it. Its practices span Azure cloud, data and AI, business applications and app development. Most delivery runs through nearshore and offshore teams, and client relationships often last for years.

Despite its age, the firm operates like a growing business. It is building a dedicated Databricks practice and wants a senior technical leader who can help shape it from the ground up.

The Role

You will be the senior Databricks authority on enterprise lakehouse engagements, starting with a long-standing healthcare insurance client that is expanding its Databricks footprint. The role is hands-on. You will set the architecture and stay close enough to the build to troubleshoot it. You will also help grow the practice internally. It suits someone who still writes PySpark and can hold their own with client executives.

What You Will Do

• Design target-state Azure Databricks architectures covering ingestion, transformation, governance, analytics and ML enablement
• Run discovery sessions with client stakeholders and turn business goals and security constraints into delivery-ready designs
• Set the engineering, CI/CD, observability and cost standards that delivery teams build against
• Review critical implementation work, catch risk early and keep what gets built aligned with what was sold
• Support pre-sales with estimates, staffing plans and statements of work, and build reference architectures the practice can reuse

What You Bring

• 10+ years in enterprise data consulting, including 5+ years delivering production Databricks or lakehouse platforms and 3+ years in principal-level or solution architecture roles
• Deep hands-on Azure Databricks skills: Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Databricks SQL, Lakeflow, Spark and PySpark, with recent work in batch, streaming and performance tuning
• Working knowledge of Azure identity, private networking, ADLS and Key Vault, plus Git-based CI/CD and Terraform or similar infrastructure as code
• Databricks Champion or Delivery Expert recognition, or an active path toward it; Data Engineer Professional certification is strongly preferred
• US-based, comfortable working Eastern hours and travelling to the client a few times a year, with the presence to lead conversations with senior client stakeholders

Why This Role

This is a ground-floor seat in a Databricks practice the firm has made a strategic priority. You start with an anchor client that already trusts the firm and is moving more of its platform onto Databricks. Your remit can grow with the practice. The role is fully remote apart from occasional client visits, and the firm expects and supports ongoing certification.