Technical Architect, Databricks CoE

Perficient•Chicago, IL

19h

About The Position

Perficient is seeking a hands-on Technical Architect for its Databricks Center of Excellence, based in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, or San Francisco. Perficient is a Databricks Gold partner with six Brickbuilder specializations and is working toward Platinum status. The architect will design and demonstrate architectures for signature solutions, support sales pursuits alongside GTM Architects and client partners, provide senior technical leadership on strategic client engagements, and remain billable on those engagements. The role also turns delivery and pursuit experience into reusable accelerators and reference assets. The architect works across Databricks Lakehouse and medallion architectures, migration programs, AI and GenAI solutions, governance, and cloud delivery on AWS, Azure, or GCP. The role includes defining technical scope and consumption forecasts for service offers, estimating DBU usage, mentoring teams, supporting certifications, and sharing structured product feedback with Databricks. Travel is required.

Requirements

15+ years of experience in data and analytics architecture, including at least 5 hands-on years with Databricks.
Hands-on Databricks experience with Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Workflows/Jobs, and Spark optimization.
Databricks Professional-level certification in Data Engineering, ML, or GenAI, or commitment to earn one within 90 days.
Delivery experience on multiple production Databricks programs on AWS, Azure, or GCP; ideally including a legacy data warehouse migration.
Hands-on agentic and GenAI experience, including RAG, Agent Bricks, evaluation, and governance; exposure to Databricks Apps.
Consulting-grade communication skills, including the ability to work with both senior business leaders and technical teams.
Depth in at least one priority industry; BFSI or HLS experience is preferred.
Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical staff.
Excellent problem-solving skills.
Ability to work independently and be self-driven.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.
Must be open to travel.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.
Databricks Champion status.
FinOps experience.
Salesforce, Adobe, or cloud-platform practice crossover.
Prior experience at a global systems integrator or in Databricks Professional Services.

Responsibilities

Lead architecture workshops, proofs of value, and demonstrations with clients and Databricks field Solutions Architects.
Build and maintain a reference demo for each signature play: Stars AI Navigator, Regulatory Compliance, Demand & Inventory, Predictive Maintenance, and Churn & Ad Monetization.
Design Lakehouse and medallion architectures using Lakeflow (Connect, Designer, Jobs), Databricks SQL, Unity Catalog, Unity AI Gateway, Genie, Agent Bricks, Databricks Apps, and Lakebase.
Apply Terraform and CI/CD patterns.
Lead legacy data warehouse-to-Lakehouse assessments and delivery using the Agentic Migration Factory and Databricks Lakebridge tooling.
Define technical scope, assumptions, and consumption forecasts for Bronze through Platinum offers, and provide credible DBU estimates for deal registrations.
Provide senior technical leadership on strategic client engagements, including architecture reviews, governance standards, and mentoring.
Build and publish reusable accelerators, reference architectures, and Brickbuilder-ready assets.
Provide structured product feedback to Databricks.
Lead the certification sprint, mentor delivery teams, and represent Perficient as a Databricks Champion in the field.
Support pursuits with GTM Architects and client partners while remaining billable on strategic engagements.
Travel as required.