Lead AI Forward Deployed Engineer – Databricks
Lead AI Forward Deployed Engineer – DatabricksON Data Staffing is partnering with a leading Data & AI consultancy to recruit an experienced Lead AI Forward Deployed Engineer – Databricks to join their growing consulting practice. This is a senior, highly client-facing engineering role focused on designing, building, and deploying AI-native solutions on Databricks. You'll work directly with enterprise clients to understand complex business problems, assess their data and AI architecture, define the right technical approach, and build production-grade AI solutions that create measurable business impact. This role combines AI Engineering, Data Engineering, Solution Architecture, and hands-on development, so we're looking for someone who can move comfortably from client discovery and architecture through to building and deploying the solution.
What You'll Be Doing:
- Work directly with business and technical stakeholders to identify high-value AI and Data use cases
- Design, build, and deploy production-grade AI solutions on Databricks
- Lead client discovery sessions covering business workflows, data availability, AI opportunities, platform maturity, integrations, and success criteria
- Architect AI-native data platforms supporting agentic workflows, RAG, semantic analytics, model deployment, retrieval systems, and operational AI applications
- Build solutions using Mosaic AI, Databricks Agents, Model Serving, Vector Search, MLflow, Unity Catalog, Databricks Apps, Genie, and Lakebase
- Develop AI agents, RAG applications, semantic layers, data products, and decision-support applications
- Partner with AI Engineering, Data Engineering, Analytics, Security, and Governance teams to deliver secure and scalable AI solutions
- Build prototypes, AI demos, technical reference architectures, and reusable accelerators
- Take AI solutions from proof of concept through to production
- Support technical pre-sales and help shape AI and Databricks-led client opportunities
- Contribute to technical thought leadership and the continued development of the wider AI & Databricks practice
What We're Looking For:
We're looking for an experienced AI Engineer / Forward Deployed Engineer who combines strong Databricks expertise with a builder's mindset and excellent client-facing skills.
You'll ideally have:
- Strong experience across AI Engineering, ML Engineering, Data Engineering, Solution Architecture, or Software Engineering
- Hands-on experience building and deploying AI/ML solutions on Databricks
- Strong Python and SQL skills
- Experience with Mosaic AI, MLflow, model deployment, Databricks Workflows, and Unity Catalog
- Experience with modern enterprise AI patterns including RAG, AI Agents, model serving, vector search, semantic layers, and evaluation frameworks
- Experience translating ambiguous business problems into technical AI solutions
- Strong communication skills with the ability to engage executives, architects, engineers, and business stakeholders
- The ability to move comfortably between strategy, architecture, and hands-on AI engineering
- Experience taking AI solutions from prototype through to productionAI & Databricks Experience
- Experience across the following would be highly desirable:
- Generative AI and RAGAI Agents and agentic workflows
- Mosaic AIDatabricks AgentsModel Serving
- Vector SearchMLflowDatabricks AppsGenieLakebaseFeature pipelines and feature stores
- Semantic layers and analyticsAI evaluation, monitoring, and governance
- Production ML and AI deployment patterns
Ideal Background:
- Previous experience within Consulting, Professional Services, Forward Deployed Engineering, AI Engineering, Solution Architecture, or technical client delivery
- Strong hands-on Databricks and AI/ML delivery experience
- Databricks certifications are highly desirable
- Experience with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform
- Experience designing and deploying production GenAI, ML, or agentic AI systems
- Comfortable creating architecture diagrams, technical roadmaps, prototypes, demos, and reusable AI accelerators
- Strong understanding of building secure, governed, scalable, production-ready AI systems
- Passion for helping enterprise organisations use Databricks as the foundation for enterprise AI at scale