What Does Spark Do?

Total employees482
HeadquartersWilmington
Founded2020

Apache Spark is a powerful open-source unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing. It provides an interface for programming entire clusters with implicit data parallelism and fault tolerance. Originally developed at the University of California, Berkeley's AMPLab in 2009, Spark was donated to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) in 2013, under whose stewardship it continues to thrive. It is renowned for its speed and ease of use, supporting a wide range of workloads including batch processing, interactive queries (SQL), real-time stream processing, machine learning (MLlib), and graph processing (GraphX). Apache Spark is driven by a global community of developers and is one of the most active projects in the ASF.

Where Is Spark's Headquarters?

Spark officeSpark officeSpark officeSpark office
*Images sourced via web search. Rights belong to original owners

HQ Function

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) provides crucial organizational, legal, and financial support for Apache Spark and over 350 other open-source software projects. It ensures these projects, including Spark, remain community-driven, vendor-neutral, and freely available under the Apache License 2.0.

Notable Features:

The ASF's 'headquarters' is primarily an administrative and legal address. The Foundation itself operates virtually, without a central physical office building. Its true 'office' is its global, distributed community of committers, members, and project contributors.

Work Culture:

The ASF fosters a 'Community Over Code' philosophy, emphasizing a collaborative, meritocratic, and consensus-based culture. Transparency in governance and development is paramount, with decisions made by the project communities.

HQ Significance:

The ASF's stewardship is fundamental for Apache Spark's governance, intellectual property management, brand protection, and the long-term sustainability and neutrality of the project as a leading open-source technology.

Values Reflected in HQ: The ASF's operations reflect values of openness, transparency, community-led development, meritocracy, consensus decision-making, and the provision of software for the public good, all of which are embodied in the Apache Spark project.

Location:

Apache Spark has a profound global presence, defined by its extensive and active worldwide community of developers, contributors, and users, rather than physical offices. It is deployed by organizations of all sizes across diverse industries in nearly every country for big data processing, machine learning, stream processing, and advanced analytics. Its development is a global collaborative effort, with significant contributions from individuals and companies in North America, Europe, Asia, and other regions. This international footprint is further amplified by numerous Spark-related conferences (like the Data + AI Summit), local meetups, and vibrant online communities that connect users and developers across the globe.

Street Address:

1000 N West Street, Suite 1200

City:

Wilmington

State/Province:

Delaware

Country:

USA

Where Else Does Spark Operate Around the World?

Global / Distributed

Address: Not Applicable. Apache Spark is an open-source project developed and maintained by a distributed global community of individual contributors and organizations. It does not have physical branch offices.

To foster a worldwide, inclusive community for the development, innovation, and widespread adoption of Apache Spark. Regional presence is expressed through local meetup groups, community-organized events, and conferences, rather than physical offices.

Buying Intent Signals for Spark

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Notable news
Hiring actively
Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance
*Example signal, not calculated in real time

Who's Leading Spark? Meet the Executive Team

As of April 2025, Spark' leadership includes:

Matei Zaharia - Original Creator of Apache Spark; Associate Professor at UC Berkeley; Chief Technologist at Databricks; Apache Spark PMC Member
Apache Spark PMC (Project Management Committee) - The project is governed by a PMC under The Apache Software Foundation. The PMC is responsible for the active management and oversight of the Apache Spark project, including code contributions, releases, and strategic direction. The list of current PMC members can be found on the Apache Spark website (spark.apache.org/committers.html).

Who's Investing in Spark?

Spark has been backed by several prominent investors over the years, including:

Databricks (Major original creator company and ongoing contributor)
Google Cloud
Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
IBM
Cloudera
Huawei
Tencent Cloud
Numerous other corporations, academic institutions, and individuals who contribute code, resources, or provide financial sponsorship to The Apache Software Foundation, thereby supporting its projects like Spark.

What Leadership Changes Has Spark Seen Recently?

Hire0
Exits0

Apache Spark, as an open-source project under The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), does not have 'executives' in the traditional corporate sense. Project leadership is vested in its Project Management Committee (PMC). Changes to PMC membership (e.g., new members being voted in, existing members becoming emeritus) are based on sustained contributions, merit, and community consensus, following ASF governance processes. These are not 'hires' or 'exits' but rather an evolution of project stewardship.

What Technology (Tech Stack) Is Used bySpark?

Discover the tools Spark uses. Highperformr reveals the technologies powering your target accounts — helping your sales, marketing, and GTM teams prioritize smarter and close faster.

Spark Email Formats and Examples

Communication within the Apache Spark project and its global community primarily takes place through official public mailing lists hosted by The Apache Software Foundation (e.g., for developers, users, committers). These lists are the central channels for discussions, questions, announcements, and decision-making. There isn't a standardized 'company' email format for individual contributors as one would find in a commercial enterprise; communication is list-based or via ASF email addresses for official roles.

[list-name]@spark.apache.org (e.g., dev@spark.apache.org, user@spark.apache.org, issues@spark.apache.org)

Format

user@spark.apache.org

Example

90%

Success rate

What's the Latest News About Spark?

spark.apache.org • February 9, 2024

Apache Spark 3.5.1 Maintenance Release Announced

Apache Spark 3.5.1, a maintenance release focusing on stability fixes, was made available. This version includes improvements in PySpark's Kubernetes support, enhanced error handling, and Python type hints, building upon the features of Spark 3.5.0. Users of Spark 3.5.0 are encouraged to upgrade....more

spark.apache.org • October 13, 2023

Apache Spark 4.0.0 Preview 1 Released

The Apache Spark community announced the first preview release of Spark 4.0.0. This major upcoming version is set to introduce significant enhancements, including Python type-hint enforcement in PySpark, improved Structured Streaming, and advancements in Spark Connect, among other features....more

Databricks Blog / Data + AI Summit • June 26, 2023

English SDK for Apache Spark Announced at Data + AI Summit

Databricks announced the private preview of an English SDK for Apache Spark, aiming to make Spark more accessible by allowing users to write Spark applications using natural language instructions, which are then translated into PySpark code. This highlights ongoing efforts to simplify big data development....more

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