Databricks Beacons
The Databricks Beacons Program is our way of thanking and recognizing the community members, data scientists, data engineers, developers and open source enthusiasts who go above and beyond to uplift the data and AI community.
Whether they’re speaking at conferences, leading workshops, teaching, mentoring, blogging, writing books, creating tutorials, offering support in forums or organizing meetups, Databricks Beacons inspire others and encourage knowledge sharing while helping to solve tough data and AI problems.
Meet the 2024 Databricks Beacons
Beacons share their passion and technical expertise with audiences around the world. They contribute to a variety of open source projects, including Apache Spark™, Delta Lake, MLflow and others. Don’t hesitate to contact them on their channels to see what they’re working on.
FRANCE
Bartosz Konieczny
Freelance Data Engineer | Trainer
LinkedIn - GitHub - X - Stackoverflow - Web
CHINA
Kent Yao
Apache Member | Apache Kyuubi PMC Chair | Apache Spark™ Committer
LinkedIn - GitHub - X - Stackoverflow
Alumni Beacons
UNITED STATES
Geeta Chauhan
Geeta leads AI/PyTorch Partnership Engineering at Facebook AI and focuses on strategic initiatives.
LinkedIn
POLAND
Maciej Szymkiewicz
Maciej is an Apache Spark™ committer. He is available for mentoring and consulting.
LinkedIn
JAPAN
Takeshi Yamamuro
Takeshi is a software engineer, Apache Spark™ committer and PMC member at NTT, Inc., who mainly works on Spark SQL.
LinkedIn
SWITZERLAND
Lorenz Walthert
Lorenz is a data scientist, MLflow contributor, climate activist and GSoC participant.
LinkedIn
CANADA
Yitao Li
Yitao is a software engineer at SafeGraph and the current maintainer of sparklyr, an R interface for Apache Spark™.
LinkedIn
Program Benefits
Becoming a Databricks Beacon does more than help you grow your public profile and professional development. It also comes with some great benefits.
Free attendance at the Databricks Data + AI Summit
Peer networking and sharing through a private community channel
Access to Databricks and OSS subject matter experts via a private channel under NDA
A Databricks Beacons badge that can be used on social media or websites
Recognition on the Databricks website and social channels
Amplification of some of your work on Databricks social channels
Custom Databricks Beacons swag
Speaker opportunities at Databricks events
Sponsorship and swag for selected meetups
Membership Responsibilities
Beacons are first and foremost practitioners in the data and AI community. Their technology focus includes Databricks, MLflow, Delta Lake, Apache Spark™ and related ecosystem technologies. Throughout the year, Beacons actively build up others by teaching, blogging, speaking, mentoring, organizing meetups, creating content, answering questions on forums and more.
As a Databricks Beacon, your responsibilities include a combination of the following:
Staying up to date on the latest Databricks developments
Organizing Databricks meetups or webinars
Contributing to technical or thought leadership blogs
Participating in first- and third-party events
Being an active member of community.databricks.com
Promoting Databricks events and solutions through social and individual networks
Engaging with new community members to ensure a welcoming and inclusive environment
Fostering community engagement
Driving the growth and success of the Databricks developer community
Interviewing new potential members
Signing a personal NDA to ensure you’re added to our private channels
These responsibilities are crucial for creating a vibrant and thriving developer community. As a Beacon, you’ll always follow the Databricks Code of Conduct.
Membership Renewals
The Databricks Beacons Program is offered only to a select few. Membership is awarded annually and renewed at the end of the year. Qualification is based on member activity in the community compared to other members during the same period. New members are vetted through an interview with the Databricks DevRel team and a current Databricks Beacon.
Nominate a Peer
We’d love to hear from you! Tell us who made continued outstanding contributions to the data and AI community. Someone in the community or a Databricks employee must nominate candidates. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and membership is valid for one year.
New members are selected based on their deep technical knowledge of Databricks solutions and community standing. They will generally focus on areas like data warehousing, data engineering, data analytics, data science, AI, MLOps and more.