Databricks Is Doubling Down On New York City As A Premier AI Talent Hub

Our New York R&D hub at 5 Bryant Park is doubling in size as our AI research, infrastructure and applications teams keep growing.

When Databricks opened its New York R&D hub at 5 Bryant Park earlier this year, we made a bet: world-class AI would be built right here in Manhattan. Today, that bet is paying off.

Our NYC engineering team is already shaping the future of enterprise AI, from foundational research to the products that put AI to work for the world's largest organizations. Our NYC office is one of the largest concentrations of AI research talent in the city.

Today, we're announcing a major expansion of our NYC footprint. We're doubling our square footage at 5 Bryant Park, growing to approximately 120,000 square feet across five floors with plans to keep growing our headcount in the city. The expansion will include a dedicated Engineering and Research floor purpose-built for focused R&D work, alongside enhanced spaces for our go-to-market teams, an Executive Briefing Center, and room for significant future growth.

New York isn't just catching up to the Bay Area in tech; it's carving out its own identity as a major AI metropolis.

A recent study showed that New York City is the largest tech talent hub in the country. But what makes NYC uniquely powerful for Databricks goes beyond raw talent numbers:

Industry proximity - New York is the global nerve center for financial services, media, healthcare, and retail, with by far the most Fortune 500 companies headquartered here. These companies are where AI gets shaped in the real world, and where the AI rubber meets the industry road. This is where AI succeeds or fails, outside of the lab. Our engineers don't just build AI products in the abstract, they build them alongside the enterprises who deploy them.

A talent-rich ecosystem - With world-class institutions like Columbia, NYU, Princeton, and a thriving startup and venture capital scene, NYC produces a deep pipeline of AI and engineering talent. We've seen firsthand that top new graduates increasingly want to build their careers here, and Databricks gives them the opportunity to work on problems at the frontier of data and AI without leaving the city.

A global capital - New York is one of the top cities where young graduates want to work, and its time zone offers the most overlap in the US with major talent hubs in Europe and India. With Databricks teams spanning the world, New York is well positioned to connect these hubs and attract top international talent.

Our NYC teams are building the products and research that define how enterprises adopt AI. Here's a look at what's happening at 5 Bryant Park:

AI Research - Our research team is tackling some of the most challenging problems in enterprise AI. Our New York City office is home to our Chief AI Scientist and research teams building the technologies that power Genie and Unity Gateway, with specialities in reinforcement learning, large-scale information retrieval, and evaluating AI enterprise agents.

AI Infrastructure - The AI infrastructure teams work on products like Unity Gateway, which is the main AI gateway for many of the biggest enterprises in the world. At a time when AI models evolve faster than ever, Unity Gateway gives enterprises governance over cost, model and provider selection. Instead of defaulting to the most expensive LLM every time, for example, Unity Gateway can automatically route workloads to the most appropriate underlying model, helping companies optimize their AI spend and resources. Unity Gateway also offers all the necessary access and security controls to safeguard their data assets and IP.

AI Applications - Our NYC team is a major contributor to Lakehouse-embedded agentic vertical applications, including CustomerLake: Databricks’ next-generation agentic app for customer data and marketing.

Together, these teams span the full spectrum of cutting-edge AI, from fundamental research and infrastructure to applications for specific industries and business needs. Few companies bring such a broad range of AI expertise together at a single site.

Built on an open source foundation, the Databricks Data + AI Platform gives teams a simple way to build AI that understands their business context. From foundational research that pushes the boundaries of what's possible, to products that over 20,000 organizations such adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Bock, Mastercard, OpenAI, Rivian, Unilever and 70% of the Fortune 500 rely on every day, our NYC team is at the center of that mission.

If you’re interested in joining a high-energy, high-velocity workplace and contributing to one of the city’s top engineering sites, visit our careers site to explore open roles.