US IT company Databricks has announced its plans to open a development centre in Belgrade, solidifying its position as “one of the company's most crucial hubs”.

In a statement, Databricks said: "We are pleased to announce the opening of the Databricks development centre in Belgrade. This addition joins our existing research and development centres in Amsterdam, Bengaluru, Berlin, San Francisco, and Seattle, playing a key role in the future trajectory of our product expansion and engineering."

The company actively encourages aspiring engineers to apply for positions in the Belgrade founding team, welcoming both local and international talent looking to return home.

As part of the announcement, Databricks unveiled the management team for the Serbian department. Dragan Tomic, a professional with over two decades of experience in Microsoft's renowned database group and a founder of the Microsoft Development Center Serbia (MDCS), will serve as vice president of Engineering, spearheading the Belgrade location. 

"Serbian engineers have left an indelible mark on the world, with luminaries such as Nikola Tesla or Mihajlo Pupin shaping our modern landscape. In recent years, Serbia's thriving tech ecosystem has become one of the backbones of advances in databases, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence — the very pillars upon which Databricks was established and continues to innovate. We are eager to draw upon the region's rich vein of technical expertise," the company said in a blog post. 

Accompanying him are Ivan Mitic, an expert in Meta's internal storage systems, returning to Belgrade after more than a decade in the United States, and Tamara Novkovic, a recruiter who played instrumental roles in building TomTom and Microsoft's local development teams.