Staff Developer Advocate Education Manager

RDQ426R325

Are you a technical leader with a passion for data and AI education, a proven track record of managing and significantly growing educational programs, and experience driving engagement with students and providing career benefits within academic settings?

As a Databricks Developer Advocate EDU Manager, you will own the Databricks University program (databricks.com/university), driving its growth to double its size and leading new innovations. You'll be a crucial link between our engineering teams and the broad community of data professionals, particularly within academic settings, by ensuring the Databricks University program offers compelling learning pathways and career opportunities. Your technical understanding will enable you to effectively oversee the creation of high-quality, relevant educational content and program initiatives. This role will leverage your strong program management skills and understanding of the technical landscape to educate, inspire, and support our growing user base within academia and beyond. It will also build on your strong reputation within educational communities and relationships with academic institutions.

Your responsibilities will encompass strategic program management, team leadership, and a wide range of community engagement activities. You'll manage the program's operations, create new initiatives to drive student engagement, and develop innovative pathways that offer tangible career benefits. You will guide the creation of informative blogs, video content, and comprehensive courseware. You'll also be instrumental in fostering a thriving Databricks community within academia. You'll work closely with the Databricks community and the product team, ensuring that user needs and product development align seamlessly, with a particular focus on the unique requirements of educational users. Reporting directly to the Head of Developer Relations, you'll collaborate with fellow Developer Advocates and program managers to create a cohesive and impactful developer relations strategy for Databricks University.

The ideal candidate for this position will embody the values of our Developer Relations team: a deep passion for data and AI, genuine empathy for developers' needs, and a strong commitment to effectively explaining our products. You'll use your diverse technical skillset to oversee the educational offerings and continuously gather and utilize community feedback to improve the developer experience, particularly for those learning and teaching with Databricks.

More about the DevRel team:

At Databricks, we are passionate about enabling data teams to solve the world's most challenging 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. Our ability to execute this mission depends on building trust and recognition with an ever-growing community of data engineers, analysts, scientists, machine learning, and AI practitioners. The Developer Relations (DevRel) team at Databricks is dedicated to building and fostering relationships with communities of data practitioners. Our primary goal is to drive awareness and adoption of the Databricks Data + AI Platform and related open source software (OSS) solutions such as Apache Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and MLflow.

The impact you will have:

• Own and strategically grow the Databricks University program (databricks.com/university), aiming to double its size and drive new innovations and expand its reach globally.
• Manage and mentor a team, leading by example in driving awareness and adoption of Databricks technologies within the educational ecosystem.
• Initiate strategic efforts and programs within DevRel for universities, developing and replicating proven approaches.
• Support the creation of high-quality educational content like videos, sample notebooks, datasets, tutorials, and blog posts, specifically tailored for academic and university audiences.
• Expand and nurture the Databricks education user community by organizing and growing meetups and user groups, and providing support to data scientists, engineers, and analysts in online communities.
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to share community learnings and influence product direction, advocating for the unique needs of educational users.
• Create and manage developer-focused education programs to foster engagement and ensure a positive developer experience for data practitioners.
• Gather and analyze feedback from the education community to drive continuous improvement of Databricks products and services, with a focus on educational use cases.
• Develop and replicate proven advocacy approaches across the team, enhancing the technical skills of the immediate or extended team through mentorship.

What we look for:

• 7+ years of experience managing and growing an education program and team, and owning large-scale educational programs like the Databricks University Alliance program.
• Experience in a technical role such as a software developer, product management, solutions architect, or similar profession, with a strong understanding of data and AI concepts.
• Passion for building strong teams and team members.
• Proven track record in nurturing developer communities, organizing user groups, and facilitating global meetups.
• Strong communication skills, with experience in teaching or facilitating discussions around complex technical topics.
• Deep empathy for developer needs, with the ability to craft engaging experiences.
• Adept at collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders to align community initiatives with product objectives.
• Experience working with universities and academic institutions to integrate technology into the curriculum and research.