Lakebase Associate Director - Retail

Lakebase Associate Director (Retail, Consumer Goods, Travel & Hospitality) **While candidates in the listed location(s) are encouraged for this role, candidates in other locations will be considered. We are hiring for multiple roles.** Databricks is seeking a Lakebase Sales Specialist to help customers modernize their operational data foundation with Databricks Lakebase, our fully-managed Postgres offering for intelligent applications. This high-impact role sits within the Lakebase Go-To-Market team and partners closely with regional Account Executives within our Retail vertical to drive adoption of Lakebase with platform, application, and data teams. Lakebase gives customers a unified, governed foundation for operational workloads and AI-native applications, helping them move away from a fragmented estate of point databases toward a modern, scalable, serverless Postgres service. If you want to be at the forefront of operational databases for AI and intelligent applications at one of the fastest-growing data and AI companies in the world, this is your opportunity. The impact you will have • Drive new Lakebase revenue by identifying, qualifying, and driving Lakebase activations and consumption within a defined territory, in partnership with regional Account Executives and the broader account team. • Lead with outcomes for key Lakebase personas — including platform teams and developers, data teams, and central IT — articulating how Lakebase helps them ship features faster, simplify operational data architectures, and improve governance and cost efficiency. • Sell the value of fully-managed Postgres for intelligent applications, positioning Lakebase as the optimal choice for operational workloads that power real-time, AI-driven experiences. • Run complex, multi-threaded sales cycles from discovery and value hypothesis through commercial negotiation and close, navigating executive, technical, and line-of-business stakeholders. • Orchestrate proof-of-value and POCs that validate Lakebase’s benefits for OLTP-style workloads, reverse ETL, and AI/ML-driven applications, in partnership with solution architects and specialists. • Compete and win against legacy and cloud-native operational databases by leveraging our compete assets, benchmarks, and customer references. • Align to measurable business outcomes such as performance, developer productivity, time-to-market for new features, cost reduction, and simplification of the operational data landscape. • Partner cross-functionally with Product Management, Marketing, Customer Success, and Partner teams to shape territory plans, launch plays, and co-selling motions with key ISVs and GSIs. • Enable the field by sharing Lakebase best practices, success stories, and sales motions with broader sales teams, helping scale Lakebase proficiency across the organization. What success looks like in this role This role requires the ability to operate across two key motions simultaneously: • Establish top strategic focus accounts by engaging application development teams to create net-new intelligent applications leveraging Lakebase. • Drive longer-term Postgres standardization and migration within Databricks' most strategic accounts. Candidates should demonstrate how they can act as a force multiplier across multiple dimensions of the business. Success in this role requires strength in four areas: • Business ownership – Operate at a business-unit level by tracking revenue, pipeline, and key observations, and by identifying areas needing additional focus or support. • Strategic account engagement – Partner with account teams to engage priority accounts across the global DB700, driving strategic opportunities from initial engagement through successful outcomes. • Field, account, & customer enablement: Align customers and the field on the value of Lakebase by equipping AEs and SAs with the messaging and execution motions needed to confidently own accounts without specialist intervention. • Market voice and thought leadership – Develop an internal and external presence by contributing to global AMAs and internal forums, and by representing Databricks at key first- and third-party events. The interview process is designed to evaluate candidates across all four of these dimensions. What we look for • 7+ years of enterprise SaaS sales experience, consistently exceeding quota in complex, multi-stakeholder deals. • Proven success selling data platforms, operational databases (e.g., Postgres, MySQL, cloud-native DBaaS), or adjacent data/AI infrastructure to technical buyers and business leaders. • Strong understanding of modern data and application architectures, including cloud-native services, microservices, event-driven systems, and how operational data underpins AI and analytics strategies. • Ability to sell to both technical stakeholders (developers, architects, data engineers) and business stakeholders (product leaders, operations, line-of-business owners). • Demonstrated experience leading specialist or overlay motions, working jointly with core Account Executives to create and progress opportunities. • Executive presence with the ability to whiteboard architectures, lead C-level conversations, and build trust with senior decision makers. • Strong value selling skills: adept at discovering pain, building a business case, and tying technical capabilities to clear, quantified outcomes. • Excellent communication, storytelling, and negotiation skills, with comfort presenting to both large and small audiences. • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience. Preferred qualifications • Experience selling Postgres, operational databases, OLTP workloads, or transactional cloud database services, ideally within large or strategic accounts. • Familiarity with data platforms, lakehouse architectures, and cloud ecosystems (AWS, Azure, GCP), including how operational databases fit within broader data and AI strategies. • Understandi