Jobs / United States / Databricks
Sr. Staff Software Engineer — Observability, Insights & Governance
Databricks · 🇺🇸 Bellevue, Washington; Seattle, Washington
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 445 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 78 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Databricks paid sponsored hires in similar roles50 certified filings for “Software Engineer” (Software Developers) in WA: $149k–$190k, median $163k. Most were filed at wage level II (42%) — 2 lottery entries, ≈31% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
A verdict summarises public evidence; it is not legal advice and never a guarantee — the employer and the immigration authority decide. Sign in to factor in where you can already work.
Or apply yourself on the official page →
Sponsor Radar — Databricks
The US Department of Labor certified 445 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 78 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Databricks →
About the role
RDQ126R35 At Databricks, observability and governance are what turn a massive, multi-tenant data and AI platform into one customers can trust at scale. We are looking for a senior technical leader to drive strategy and execution across three closely related teams at the heart of that mission: Query Observability, SQL Warehouse Management, and Account-Level Observability and Governance. Query Observability builds the performance and observability tooling, ingesting very large volumes of query telemetry and turning it into history views, execution plans, performance insights, and recommendations that help customers run workloads reliably at scale. Beyond query observability, you will be responsible for building observability and actionable insights at compute level, workspace level, and account level so that admins can confidently manage large accounts. This is a new technical leadership role responsible for setting the durable architecture across all these surfaces, raising the engineering bar of the combined team, and shaping the next generation of agentic experiences that let users — and the systems they run on — investigate, diagnose, and act on insights across query, warehouse, workspace, and account levels. The Impact You Will Have • Establish the long-term technical direction across query observability, warehouse management, and account-level governance, and own the multi-year architecture all three surfaces are built on. • Design and lead high-impact projects that move the needle on performance, reliability, and cost transparency for customers. • Build the next generation of agentic observability and governance — extensible experiences that let users and automated agents investigate, diagnose, and act on telemetry across query, warehouse, and account. • Partner deeply with Databricks SQL, Unity Catalog, AI, security, and platform teams to integrate end-to-end visibility and governance across the data plane and control plane. • Mentor senior engineers, set the technical standards across the group, and recruit top talent into observability, insights, and governance. • Champion reliable, high-quality software and the operational practices that let a focused team confidently support product surfaces used by tens of thousands of customers. What We Look For • 12+ years building and operating large-scale distributed systems, observability or governance platforms, databases, or backend infrastructure. • A proven track record as a technical leader on teams operating in complex, multi-stakeholder environments — driving long-term architecture while still delivering incremental customer impact. • Deep computer science fundamentals (algorithms, data structures, systems design) applied to real-world, high-throughput problems. • Experience with one or more of: observability and telemetry pipelines, query engines and query analytics, distributed tracing and metrics, time-series storage, data governance, or large-scale logging systems. • Strong cross-functional communication skills — able to align engineering, product, and infrastructure partners across multiple teams on technical strategy and trade-offs. • BS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience (MS/PhD a plus). • Bonus: experience building agentic experiences using LLMs . Pay Range Transparency Databricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Ba