Role:Databricks Administrator
Client: CTS / US Bank
Location: Chicago, IL (Onsite)
Position Type: Contract
Industry: Banking & Financial Services
Position Overview
We are seeking an experienced Databricks Administrator to support and manage enterprise-scale Databricks environments within a highly regulated financial services ecosystem. The ideal candidate will be responsible for the administration, security, performance optimization, governance, and operational support of the Databricks platform while collaborating with data engineering, cloud, security, and analytics teams.
This role requires strong expertise in Databricks administration, cloud infrastructure, data platform operations, access management, monitoring, automation, and platform governance. The successful candidate will play a critical role in ensuring the reliability, scalability, security, and performance of the organization's modern data platform.
Key Responsibilities
Administer and maintain Databricks workspaces across development, testing, and production environments.
Configure and manage Databricks clusters, job clusters, cluster policies, pools, and compute resources.
Implement and manage workspace governance, access controls, and security policies.
Configure and maintain Unity Catalog, data governance, and metadata management solutions.
Manage user provisioning, RBAC, groups, service principals, and workspace permissions.
Monitor platform health, performance, availability, and resource utilization.
Optimize cluster performance, cost management, and workload efficiency.
Troubleshoot platform issues related to clusters, notebooks, jobs, workflows, connectivity, and integrations.
Support data engineering teams with Spark performance tuning and platform best practices.
Implement monitoring, logging, auditing, and operational dashboards.
Collaborate with cloud engineering teams to support Azure/AWS infrastructure integrations.
Manage CI/CD deployment processes for Databricks assets and workflows.
Support disaster recovery, backup strategies, and platform resiliency initiatives.
Ensure compliance with enterprise security, risk, and regulatory requirements.
Document platform configurations, operational procedures, and support processes.
Required Skills & Experience
Databricks Administration
5+ years of Databricks administration experience.
Strong hands-on experience managing enterprise Databricks environments.
Experience administering:
Databricks Workspaces
Clusters
Cluster Policies
Job Scheduling
Workflows
Notebooks
Repositories
Databricks Governance & Security
Unity Catalog Administration
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Data Governance and Lineage
Secrets Management
Audit Logging
Compliance and Security Controls
Apache Spark & Data Platform
Strong understanding of:
Apache Spark
Spark Optimization
Delta Lake
Data Lake Architecture
Lakehouse Architecture
Performance tuning and troubleshooting experience.
Cloud Platforms
Experience with one or more:
Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
DevOps & Automation
Terraform
CI/CD Pipelines
Git
Azure DevOps
Jenkins
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Monitoring & Operations
Databricks Monitoring
Cloud Monitoring Tools
Operational Support
Incident Management
Root Cause Analysis
Capacity Planning
Preferred Qualifications
Experience in Banking, Financial Services, or highly regulated industries.
Databricks Certified Administrator certification.
Experience implementing Unity Catalog in enterprise environments.
Knowledge of data security and governance frameworks.
Experience supporting large-scale data engineering and analytics teams.
Familiarity with Snowflake, Kafka, Airflow, or other modern data platforms.
Experience with FinOps and cloud cost optimization initiatives.
Required Soft Skills
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
Strong analytical and troubleshooting abilities.
Ability to work independently and manage multiple priorities.
Strong documentation and process improvement skills.
Experience working within enterprise support and operational environments.