Raising the bar for talent with Databricks’ intentional people strategy

According to GeekWire, “Founded in 2013, Databricks has 2,500 employees and more than 5,000 customers including Comcast, Condé Nast, H&M, and over 40% of the Fortune 500. The company says it’s on pace to generate $1 billion or more in 2022 revenue, a growth rate of over 75%” and “in August, Databricks announced a $1.6 billion Series H funding round. The company has raised $3.8 billion to date and is valued at $38 billion.”

This scale of expansion far excels the normal rate of growth for an organization and brings with it a wake of challenges for the people side.

As if this wasn’t enough to contend with, “In the first half of 2021, the IT employment market in the United States gained an average of 13,000 positions per month. It was up from an average of 5,000 to 8,000 jobs per month prior, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” as shared by entreprenuer.com.

Additionally, Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the world. A Bay Area real estate news site revealed, “Out of CBRE’s rankings, the San Francisco Bay Area held onto the top spot for the ninth consecutive year in a row. In the region, demand for tech services has grown during the pandemic and work-from-home became a more permanent fixture.”

Mass expansion? Tick. Seeking talent in the most competitive skills area to date? Tick. And, headquartered in the most demanding location for this type of talent? Tick.

Queue exhausted, burned-out, and struggling to manage HR team (completely ignoring the implications of a global pandemic)? Wrong.

Databricks have not only raised the bar in the eyes of the investor community, but they’ve also equally done so for the talent in the organization now and their talent of the future.

We are thrilled to share some insights from Amy Reichanadter, Chief People Officer at Databricks who has been leading this phenomenal journey.

It’s not every day you can join an organization whose mission inspires you. 

Databricks’ Career Site.

Being intentional about a people strategy

“We have been incredibly intentional about how we wanted to develop the people strategy… We want people to feel empowered to do the best work of their career,” Amy explained.

She outlined how they have had to be incredibly conscious of their growth outlook, really having to scrutinize their strategy and their technology partnerships within their HR sphere, in order to be effective and manage their astounding rate of change.

One of the intentional decisions Databricks has made is to partner with Beamery.

Beamery has observed how some of the world’s most competitive talent organizations have changed their internal structures in the last few years to be able to scale, unlock new markets, and consistently deliver the absolute best candidates to their organization. This unique knowledge, and the synergy in their values and mission statement with Databricks feels like a match made in heaven.

Raising the bar for their people culture

Amy and her team have always prided themselves on the values that are engrained in the life of all Databricks employees. They believe these are truly lived authentically and adhered to by their collective talent and what provides such a compelling proposition to prospective talent.

What unifies Databricks?

Over the last year, they’ve also added another core value: “Raise the bar”.

This is really the idea that every hire that we make is an opportunity to make the company better. And, with the amount that we’re scaling and the amount that we’re hiring, we really feel that it’s important to be intentional about making sure everyone knows how additive each individual is to the collective team.

From a cultural transformation, to digital

Whilst content in the knowledge that the cultural transformation and intentionality with their people strategy are setting them apart for the means of retention, and talent acquisition, Databricks have also realized the need for a digital transformation to support their continued accelerated growth strategy and to empower their talent leaders to also do their best work.

Part of this transformation strategy has included implementing Beamery in their tech stack at Databricks. This partnership is enabling the talent team to continue to hire to the high bar that they’ve set themselves. Beamery has also been behind some of our other recent first-hand stories of amazing transformations from both AstraZeneca and Northwestern Mutual.

At Databricks, Beamery is enabling them to ensure that they have the technology foundation and workforce agility to stay competitive and meet their hyper-growth business objectives. By being able to map the skills data across the organization, Databricks are now able to build the talent that they need and reduce the strain on their recruiting team.