[Remote] Databricks Solutions Expert (Remote)

October 1, 2026

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. GovCIO is hiring a Databricks Solutions Expert to support the Department of Veterans Affairs Data Modernization initiative. The role will architect, design, and implement Azure Databricks as a secure, governed, multi-tenant Lakehouse platform, while establishing engineering, governance, security, automation, and enablement standards for enterprise analytics teams.

Responsibilities

The Databricks Solutions Expert will define platform patterns, build reference implementations, set standards (cluster policies, Unity Catalog governance, CI/CD), and drive enablement so product, analytics, and data science teams can deliver reliable, compliant, and performant insights at scale
Blueprint the Azure Databricks landing zone: workspace topology (prod/non-prod), network architecture (VNet injection, Private Link, NAT), secure connectivity to ADLS Gen2, Azure SQL/MI, Event Hubs, and other data sources
Governance with Unity Catalog: multi-region metastores, catalog/schema/table design, data classification tiers, row/column-level security, data lineage, and cross-domain data sharing patterns (Delta Sharing)
Lakehouse foundations: Delta Lake storage design (bronze/silver/gold), medallion data flow standards, partitioning, Z‑ordering, OPTIMIZE/VACUUM policies, and performance best practices (Photon, AQE)
Scalability for “thousands of teams”: multi-workspace strategy, tenancy model (shared vs. dedicated), workspace baselines, cluster policy tiers, and guardrails to prevent noisy-neighbor and cost runaways
Reliability: HA/DR strategy, regional deployments, backup/restore, versioning, and repeatable environment provisioning via Terraform
Identity & access: Entra ID (Azure AD) SSO, SCIM user/group provisioning, service principals/managed identities, attribute-based/role-based access controls mapped to Unity Catalog
Secrets & credentials: Key Vault–backed secret scopes, credential passthrough patterns, token hygiene (PAT governance)
Data protection: encryption at rest/in transit, private endpoints, data exfil and egress controls, policy-as-code, and audit logging to Log Analytics or secure storage
Compliance: enforce enterprise policies (PII/PHI handling), data retention, legal hold, and regulatory reporting with auditable lineage
Pipelines: build DLT (Delta Live Tables) pipelines and jobs for batch and streaming (Structured Streaming) with CDC (e.g., via Auto Loader) from enterprise sources
Performance engineering: optimize notebooks/SQL/ETL (Photon, caching, skew mitigation), tune cluster sizing, and set standards for reliable, fast jobs
MLOps: integrate MLflow for experiment tracking, model registry, feature store (Unity Catalog), and serving patterns where appropriate
Observability: end-to-end monitoring (jobs, clusters, UC audits), dashboarding, alerting, and SLOs; integrate with Azure Monitor/Log Analytics
Enablement: build reusable reference accelerators (templates, example notebooks, data products), run playbooks, and conduct office hours to uplevel 1000s of teams
Infrastructure-as-Code: provision workspaces, catalogs, cluster policies, and permissions via Terraform (Databricks provider), with pipelines in Azure DevOps/GitHub
CI/CD: notebook/package deployment, testing harnesses (dbx/pytest), environment promotion, and artifact versioning
FinOps: cost modeling, budgets/alerts, instance pools, auto-termination, serverless SQL, tagging/chargeback, and usage analytics for executive reporting
Partner with Security, Networking, Compliance, and FinOps to codify enterprise standards
Establish a Lakehouse Platform Council to ratify patterns and review exceptions
Create adoption metrics, business case narratives, TCO models, and executive updates

Skills

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology or a related field. (or commensurate experience)
12+ years of experience in data engineering/analytics; 5+ years building on cloud data platforms (Azure preferred)
3+ years hands-on Azure Databricks (platform + pipelines) and Delta Lake
Proven experience setting up Unity Catalog with granular governance (RLS/CLS)
Deep knowledge of Azure networking (VNets, Private Link, NSGs), identity (Entra ID), Key Vault, ADLS Gen2, Event Hubs, Azure SQL/MI, and Data Factory
Strong Spark expertise (PySpark/SQL), Structured Streaming, performance tuning, partitioning and storage optimization
Practical Terraform experience for Databricks/Azure resources; CI/CD with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions
Security-first mindset; track record implementing audit logging, policy-as-code, and compliance controls
Excellent communication skills; ability to standardize, teach, and influence at enterprise scale
Ability to obtain and maintain a suitability/Public Trust
Experience operating platforms for >500 concurrent users and 1000s of analytics teams
Knowledge of Photon, DLT, Workflows, Lakehouse ML (MLflow, feature store), Delta Sharing
Exposure to FinOps and chargeback models for data platforms
Experience with Synapse/Fabric interoperability, and data virtualization patterns
Background in data modeling (medallion, dimensional, domain‑driven design) and data quality (expectations, SLAs)
+ Databricks: Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional, Lakehouse Fundamentals, Machine Learning Associate/Professional
+ Microsoft: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ‑305), Azure Data Engineer (DP‑203), Azure Security Engineer (AZ‑500)
+ HashiCorp: Terraform Associate
Scala (optional)

Benefits

This position is fully remote within the United States.

Company Overview

GovCIO is a business consulting firm that focuses on cyber security, digital, data, management and mission services, and IT services. It was founded in 2010, and is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, USA, with a workforce of 1001-5000 employees. Its website is

Company H1B Sponsorship

GovCIO has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 1 in 2025, 3 in 2024, 2 in 2023, 7 in 2022. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.

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