My only experience with databricks is seeing it break and having the customer blame it on us, and a scandal where it turns out databricks engineers could see unencrypted customer data on the backend. Everyone is talking about it as a FANG competitor (apparently the TC is high), but I’ve been exclusively frustrated by my interactions with it. Is it a great place to work? A unicorn with high potential upside? I don’t get it, it just seems like another random data company with software that doesn’t quite work right.
When I interviewed there, the recruiter told me there is a first chat with a manager (before any interview or phone screen). I expected an informal chat but turned out to be a behavioral interview (they ask questions, not me asking questions about the team, etc). The manager also asked me what level I started at Google and how long it took me to get promoted for each level... wtf. I politely declined to answer. I was rejected and not given any feedback of course.
Databricks interview process is one of the shitiest I have seen. My all interviews went well except the one where interviewer definitely was stoned. I bet he himself doesn't know answer to the coding problem he gave and I was then rejected. Will never apply to that company again
Yes definitely a flaky interview process
When you say “doesn’t work”, do you have any specific examples? We have been using it for over 3 years and never had an issue. There are always gaps which are expected in such a fast changing space like data where a ton of new things come up every 6 months. But they have been keeping up and delivered so far. You can’t have such a line up of big companies using it for years without a stable and useful product. It’s not hyped and not just another data company. It’s one of the key solution provider to stabilize the entire data platform architecture space.
Bound by confidentiality to not talk about specifics, but you’re right that it’s a key solution provider for a lot of big companies crunching a lot of data. Banks use it, insurance companies use it. Which is why it’s a huge deal that they could see unencrypted PII and that sometimes the platform didn’t work at scale. I’m personally not a data engineer and have no insight into their company. The databricks incident manager I’ve worked with was fantastic and I have a friend I played in chess tournaments with growing up also working there— high esteem for the employees I’ve met. I’m just saying the platform has had glaring issues, I don’t quite understand why people would go there over F/G, and I’m wondering what perspectives other people had from inside/outside the company.
The burden of data encryption lies with the customer as the data resides in their VPC. Databricks only manages the compute clusters and moves code but not data outside of the customer’s VPC. Getting access to in memory data during compute is a whole different story and I don’t think that’s what’s happening.
no, stay at microsoft. It is all hype, and azure synapse is so much better
TC is high cus of stock appreciation
What's the deal with azure? My only experience with azure is seeing its tech limp along, getting carried by existing enterprise deals
Most so-called unicorns are similarly dysfunctional. We are in a big bubble right now.