I applied online. I interviewed at Databricks in Jan 2021
Interview
On LinkedIn this role appeared (advert) and I applied. After 4 days an HR Talent recruitment professional sent an email thanking me for applying and requested an introductory call.
The call took place a week after this email. During that phonecall (no video call) the Talent recruiter asked some specific questions about what I had done in my career. It was clear that the Talent recruiter was specifically looking for experience similar to Databricks'. Although my CV is very clear on my background, the Talent recruiter asked quite a lot obvious questions quizzing me some on some basics. We concluded that the Talent recruiter had to check with the hiring manager whether I could be interesting to the team because it could be an issue that I had not worked yet in the context of Big Data. Although my CV was very clear on this, I managed to explain what experience I have with predictive analytics, RPA and Cloud.
The Talent recruiter would come back to me after the weekend.
On Monday after the weekend I received an email from the HR Talent recruiter. They thanked me for showing interest but due to lack of fit from a profile pov. IT was a default format email.
From a company of this size, technical reputation and capabilities I expect more quality. A rejection is fine, but a cheeky email is so wrong. Further, one of the issues of a lot of Software Companies (a common flaw in the European branches) is that they way they search, find, select and qualify candidates is close to pointless. Too often do they seek copies of people they already know/have within the company and focus too heavily specific skillset and that gives the impression that - like Databricks in this case - they overestimate the work that they are doing which eventually leads to turning down great talents.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What sales methodologies have you used or are you trained at?
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We appreciate the effort you put into the interview and are sorry to hear about your experience. Candidate experience is a top priority for us and we are always looking for ways to create a more engaging and tailored experience for our candidates. We would love to learn more about any other feedback you may have. If you’re open to it, please feel free to contact me directly.
Negative experience
Average interview
Application
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Databricks (New York, KY) in Mar 2026
Interview
Not very good. Recruiter sent auto reply after a 1 hour interview and it felt like time wasted. I never got any feedback to know where it went wrong. I can’t say Im impressed.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Databricks (San Francisco, CA)
Interview
The hiring process was exceedingly long, arduous, and overly demanding, requiring unreasonable, extensive research and data preparation that should have been scope for the actual role.
It was challenging to interpret virtually, featuring several tense, recorded one-on-one interviews, further disrupted by senior management no-shows at scheduled times.
The overall environment felt perfunctory, leading me to believe they already had an internal candidate and were proceeding only for elimination or backup.
Disturbingly, the final interview was held virtually in a large group setting—a decent format for a sales role with no mention of an in-person component. This included demands for super deep dives into technology areas, which typically require an engineering resource to provide credible data, putting the sales candidate in the awkward position of potentially having to speculate or "make things up."
Furthermore, I observed signs of significant bias: the team was lacking in racial diversity (composed solely of individuals identifying as white/Caucasian) and made negative remarks in 1:1 meetings that suggested underlying ageism and racial factors, specifically targeting candidates from certain technology company or backgrounds.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Please describe Databricks' value proposition, explain its architectural differences from a competitor like Snowflake, and articulate the key competitive advantages that allow Databricks to win in the market.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Databricks
Interview
A very good process. Expectations were clearly set, I had 6 meetings. First meeting with recruiter, hiring manager, solutions architect, RVP, hiring manager again and finally with a presentation to 6 stakeholders.
The entire process was about 4-6 weeks from initial meeting to offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Asked about the databricks application architecture. Be prepared to go 100-200 level deep, with a clear understanding of the application.
