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Databricks MVPs

The Databricks MVP 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 MVPs inspire others and encourage knowledge sharing while helping to solve tough data and AI problems.

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.

Meet the Databricks MVPs

MVPs 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.

Aarni Sillanpää
FINLAND

Aarni Sillanpää

Founder
LinkedIn

Abiola David
UNITED KINGDOM

Abiola David

Senior Data Engineer
LinkedIn - X - Youtube

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UNITED STATES

Adi Polak

Data and AI Expert
LinkedIn - GitHub - X

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INDIA

Ajay Kumar Pandey

Head of Data + AI
LinkedIn

Alex Wiss-Wolferding
UNITED STATES

Alex Wiss-Wolferding

Lead Data Architect
LinkedIn - GitHub

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UNITED STATES

Andrew Sitz

Data Architect I Co-owner
LinkedIn

Ansh Lambda
CANADA

Ansh Lambda

Data Solutions Developer I Content Creator
YouTube - LinkedIn

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NORWAY

Awadelrahman M.A. Ahmed

Data & AI Architect – Strategy, Platforms & Solutions | MLflow Ambassador
LinkedIn

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FRANCE

Bartosz Konieczny

Freelance Data Engineer | Trainer
LinkedIn - GitHub - X - Stackoverflow - Web

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CANADA

Behzad Nikzad

Principal Data Architect
LinkedIn

Casper Lubbers
NETHERLANDS

Casper Lubbers

Lead Data Platform Engineer
LinkedIn

Conner Schiissler
CANADA

Conner Schiissler

Data Architect
LinkedIn - GitHub Blog

Dan Williams
UNITED KINGDOM

Dan Williams

CTO & Advisor
Youtube - LinkedIn

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POLAND

Daniel Sahal

Senior Data Engineer
LinkedIn - Community

 

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FRANCE

Derar Alhussein

Udemy Instructor | O’Reilly Author
LinkedIn - GitHub - Web - Udemy

Dilorom Abdullah
UNITED STATES

Dilorom Abdullah

Sr. Databricks Architect
LinkedIn - Medium

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UNITED STATES

Dip Kharod

Chief Technology Officer
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Doug MacWilliams

Director of Data
LinkedIn

Dr. Alan L. Dennis
UNITED STATES

Dr. Alan L. Dennis

Director I Author
LinkedIn - YouTube - GitHub

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UNITED STATES

Dylan Ford

Databricks Practice Lead
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Eddie Edgeworth

Chief Technology Officer
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Eloisa Elias T

Data Scientist | Data Analyst | Open Source Community Organizer |  Founder, PyData Seattle by NumFOCUS | Chair, PyLadies Seattle
LinkedIn - YouTube

Gary Nakanelua
UNITED STATES

Gary Nakanelua

Managing Director, Product Innovation
LinkedIn

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UNITED KINGDOM

Gavita Regunath

Head of AI
LinkedIn - X

Geoffrey Freeman
UNITED STATES

Geoffrey Freeman

Director of Data + Engineering
LinkedIn

Hubert Dudek
SLOVAKIA

Hubert Dudek

Leading Data Engineer
LinkedIn - Medium - YouTube

Ike Ellis
UNITED STATES

Ike Ellis

Founder & Organizer I Managing Consultant
LinkedIn - YouTube - Conference

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POLAND

Jacek Laskowski

Freelance Data Engineer 
LinkedIn - GitHub - X - Stackoverflow

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NETHERLANDS

Jaco van Gelder

Staff Data Engineer
LinkedIn - GitHub - Community

Jake Duckers
UNITED STATES

Jake Duckers

Senior Business Analyst
LinkedIn

Jason Yip
UNITED STATES

Jason Yip

Director of Data + AI I Author
LinkedIn

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CANADA

Jonathan Rioux

ML I Data Nerd
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Josh Adams

Data Architect | Co-owner
LinkedIn

Josue A. Bogran
UNITED STATES

Josue A. Bogran

Solutions Architect Manager | Technical Advisor
LinkedIn - Youtube

Juan Diaz
UNITED STATES

Juan Diaz

Full Stack Developer
LinkedIn - Website - GitHub - X

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NORWAY

Julia Førde

Data Warehousing | Consultant
LinkedIn - Sessionize

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UNITED STATES

KyJah Keys

Solver of Problems | Product Engineer
LinkedIn - GitHub - X - Community

Liping Huang
SINGAPORE

Liping Huang

Founder & CEO
YouTube

Luan Moreno
BRAZIL

Luan Moreno

Sr. Cloud Consultant | Data Engineer
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Mani Kandasamy

Technology Fellow | AI and Data
LinkedIn

Mantu Samadder
UNITED STATES

Mantu Samadder

Head of Data + AI
LinkedIn

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NETHERLANDS

Maria Vechtomova

MLOps Tech Lead
LinkedIn - X - Medium

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HUNGARY

Mate Gulyas

CEO I Data Engineering and Data Science
LinkedIn

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INDIA

Maulik Dixit

Sr. Director — Data Engineering
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Michael Green

Director — Product Management
LinkedIn

Miguel Diaz
COLOMBIA

Miguel Diaz

Data + AI Platform Director
LinkedIn

Nidhi Gupta
INDIA

Nidhi Gupta

Senior Azure Data Engineer
LinkedIn - Medium

Nilton Ueda
BRAZIL

Nilton Ueda

Executive Senior Manager
LinkedIn

Nivethan Venkatachalam
SWEDEN

Nivethan Venkatachalam

Executive Senior Manager
LinkedIn - GitHub - Community

Pål de Vibe
NORWAY

Pål de Vibe

Principal Engineer, Data Engineering + AI
LinkedIn - YouTube

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INDIA

Phani Reddy Janga

Associate Principal — Data Engineering
LinkedIn - Community

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UNITED STATES

R. Tyler Croy

Developer
GitHub - X - Stackoverflow

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UNITED STATES

Rajaniesh Kaushikk

Director of Technology | Blogger | YouTuber | Speaker
LinkedIn -  X - YouTube - GitHub - Sessionize - Website

Raul Sarachaga
PERU

Raul Sarachaga

Gerente de Dados
YouTube - MeetUp

Rishabh Pandey
INDIA

Rishabh Pandey

Consultant - Databricks Engineer
LinkedIn - YouTube - Community

Robert Thompson
UNITED STATES

Robert Thompson

Member of Technical Staff Solutions
Architect
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Ryan Shiva

Software Engineer
LinkedIn

Sai Nageshwaran
UNITED STATES

Sai Nageshwaran

Vice President, Data + AI
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Scott Davis

Managing Director I Data and AI
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Scott Haines

Distinguished Software Engineer
LinkedIn - GitHub - X

Shashank Shekhar
NETHERLANDS

Shashank Shekhar

Lead Data Engineer
LinkedIn

Shekhar Shukla
INDIA

Shekhar Shukla

Founder
LinkedIn - X

Shraddha Shetty
INDIA

Shraddha Shetty

Senior Consultant Data Engineer
LinkedIn - Medium

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UNITED KINGDOM

Simon Whiteley

CTO | YouTuber | Spark Nerd
LinkedIn - YouTube - X

Soufiane Darraz
NETHERLANDS

Soufiane Darraz

Owner I Data Platform Engineer
LinkedIn

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UNITED STATES

Subramanian Iyer

Master Architect I Founder
LinkedIn

Sudarshan Koirala
FINLAND

Sudarshan Koirala

Senior Gen AI Engineer
YouTube - LinkedIn - X

Vitalija Bartusevičiūtė
NORWAY

Vitalija Bartusevičiūtė

Senior Consultant - Data Engineer
LinkedIn - Website

Yuki Saito
JAPAN

Yuki Saito

Manager
LinkedIn

Zoë van Knoppen
BELGIUM

Zoë van Knoppen

Data Solution Architect
LinkedIn

Program Benefits

Becoming a Databricks MVP 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 MVP 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 MVP swag

  • Speaker opportunities at Databricks events

  • Sponsorship and swag for selected meetups

Membership Requirements

MVPs 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, MVPs actively build up others by teaching, blogging, speaking, mentoring, organizing meetups, creating content, answering questions on forums and more.

As a Databricks MVP, 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 an MVP, you’ll always follow the Databricks Code of Conduct.

Membership Renewals

The Databricks MVP 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 MVP.