Databricks

Constantly evolving and innovating at a rapid pace, creating an exciting and dynamic work environment. Leadership is focused and aligned on execution, which helps maintain momentum as the company continues to grow. There is a strong culture of financial discipline, with careful attention to spending and resource allocation. Compensation is heavily weighted toward equity, which has been rewarding so far given successive funding rounds and increasing company valuation.

Leadership is callous and ungrateful, often dismissive of individual contributions and impact.

Prior work that directly contributed to signed contracts and revenue is routinely disregarded, which is demoralizing and devalues long-term effort.

Workload is unsustainable: a book of business with 100+ customers makes it nearly impossible to deliver high-quality support.

Required to support two extremely demanding AEs on opposite coasts, creating constant context switching and pressure across multiple time zones.

Typical workdays start before 6:00 AM Pacific and run late into the evening, leading to ongoing burnout with no real acknowledgment or relief.

AEs say “yes” to everything, including trivial questions customers could solve via Google or documentation, which wastes technical time and energy.

Sales behavior encourages misuse of technical resources, such as opening support tickets for customers who do not even have a valid support contract.

Company is cheap on compensation: initial offers underpay relative to years of experience and skills, and place heavy emphasis on equity instead of fair base salary.

I still had to push hard and negotiate an extra $10K on top of their already low initial offer, which reinforced the sense that they underpay by default.

DEI messaging feels performative; support for LGBT employees over 60 is effectively nonexistent, making the DEI narrative ring hollow.

Benefits are rigid and exclusionary: no health coverage for domestic partners over 65 who are on Medicare unless legally married, leaving significant gaps for long-term partners.

There is no meaningful investment in professional development or career growth, despite the demands placed on technical staff.

The product and platform are highly technical and complex, yet training, documentation, and internal support do not match this complexity, increasing stress and ramp time.

Treat employees with basic respect and empathy, and the tone set by leadership defines the culture for everyone.

Be far more discerning about who you promote into management roles, because high-performing individual contributors do not automatically make effective people leaders.

Prioritize promoting managers who actually want to lead, demonstrate listening skills, and show they can support and develop others rather than those who rely on authority or intimidation.

Provide real training and accountability for managers on communication, feedback, and psychological safety, and act when leaders consistently fail to meet those expectations.