Databricks Administrator (Onsite)

Jobs Description Role: Databricks Administrator Work Location: Washington, DC Contract: 10+ months contract (possible to extend) Note: Onsite Responsibilities The Databricks Administrator is responsible for running and securing the Databricks platform end-to-end. This includes workspace and cluster administration, Unity Catalog governance, access control, AWS integration, automation (Terraform/CI-CD), monitoring, cost optimization, compliance support, and operational troubleshooting, ensuring the platform is secure, compliant, reliable, and scalable for enterprise analytics and AI/ML workloads. Qualifications Hands-on experience administering Databricks (workspace administration, clusters/compute policies, jobs, SQL warehouses, repos, runtime management) and expertise using Databricks CLI. Strong Unity Catalog administration: metastores; catalogs/schemas; grants; service principals; external locations; storage credentials; governed storage access. Identity & Access Management proficiency: SSO concepts, SCIM provisioning, group based RBAC, service principals, least-privilege patterns. Security fundamentals: secrets management, secure connectivity, audit logging, access monitoring, and evidence-ready operations. Cloud platform expertise (AWS ): IAM roles/policies, object storage security patterns, networking basics (VPC concepts), logging/monitoring integration. Automation skills: scripting and/or IaC using Terraform/CLI/REST APIs for repeatable configuration and environment promotion. Experience implementing data governance controls (classification/tagging, lineage/metadata integrations) in partnership with governance teams. CI/CD practices for jobs/notebooks/config promotion across SDLC environments. Understanding of lakehouse concepts (e.g., Delta, table lifecycle management, separation of storage/compute). SQL proficiency and data engineering fundamentals for troubleshooting query performance issues, understanding ETL/ELT workflow patterns, and debugging data pipeline failures; basic Python/Scala familiarity for notebook/code issue diagnosis. Experience with compliance and regulatory frameworks (FedRAMP, HIPAA, SOC2, or similar) including implementation of data residency requirements, retention policies, and audit-ready evidence collection. Hands-on experience with AWS security and networking services including PrivateLink, Secrets Manager/Systems Manager integration, CloudWatch/CloudTrail integration, S3 bucket policies, cross-account access patterns, and KMS encryption key management. Experience administering Databricks serverless compute, Workspace Git integrations (GitLab), Databricks Asset Bundles (DABs) for deployment automation, and modern workspace features supporting DevOps workflows. SLA/SLO management and stakeholder communication skills; ability to define platform service levels, produce operational reports, translate technical issues to business stakeholders, and manage vendor relationships (Databricks account teams). Education / Experience: Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience. 7+ years in cloud/data platform administration and operations, including 4+ years supporting Databricks or similar platforms. Certifications: Databricks Platform Administrator/Databricks AWS Platform Architect Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate/Professional AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate or Professional