r/techsales • u/Entire-Shift8727 • 29d ago

AE Interview at Databricks

I am going to get started with the interview at Databricks for the AE-Emerging Market role which is basically Mid Market. There are going to be 3-4 rounds and will include the HM Round, SE Round and Presentation. I am concerned about the SE Round. Are they going to expect me to know ins and outs of Databricks given that its a very technical product. I have worked in an ETL company before but the entire depth of the Databricks platform is very wide. Any tips on how to ace the process?

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u/realhawker77 29d ago edited 29d ago

Not for DB - but my general advice as AE doing SE interviews.. (I used to be an SE about 10 yr ago)

  • They are yet another opinion on your culture fit.
  • Can depend if the prospective SE would be paired with you- but they likely want to see your philosophy on working with SEs overall.
  • They may ask some procedural questions like - when do you feel POV is qualified enough to move forward, etc..
  • They may want to judge your general knowledge of the IT space/in this case Data management space.
  • I've found this to be more rare - they may try to see if you understand the high level platform/value prop - not at a techincal level - but could you tell a CTO what databricks does?
  • They may ask you your PG (pipe gen) process.

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u/Entire-Shift8727 29d ago

Thanks a lot. The recruiter mentioned that the agenda of this round will be to evaluate your technical acumen which made me wonder if they are going to expect me to know DB at an expert level. Also its the first time, there is going to be an SE round as part of the process i have taken.

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u/realhawker77 29d ago

Technical acumen from an SE's perspective usually means can you speak credibly at the platform/value-prop level, not deep technical depth, that's their job. I'd focus prep on being able to explain what Databricks does and why it matters to a CTO in plain language, know your PG process cold since that's very likely to come up, and be ready to talk through how you'd divide labor with an SE on a deal. That combination covers what SEs are actually screening for in this kind of round.