Software Engineer

Welcome to Planet. We believe in using space to help life on Earth.

Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites in history. This constellation delivers an unprecedented dataset of empirical information via a revolutionary cloud-based platform to authoritative figures in commercial, environmental, and humanitarian sectors. We are both a space company and data company all rolled into one.

Customers and users across the globe use Planet's data to develop new technologies, drive revenue, power research, and solve our world’s toughest obstacles.

As we control every component of hardware design, manufacturing, data processing, and software engineering, our office is a truly inspiring mix of experts from a variety of domains.

We have a people-centric approach toward culture and community and we strive to iterate in a way that puts our team members first and prepares our company for growth. Join Planet and be a part of our mission to change the way people see the world.

Planet is a global company with employees working remotely world wide and joining us from offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and The Netherlands.

About the Role: 

Planet’s Platform teams build and operate systems that enable customers to access and analyze Planet's daily and high resolution imagery, as well as derived products like Basemaps. We enable customers to browse data catalogs, stream data via tile services, and orchestrate geospatial analysis.

This position is to be a contributing member of our Platform teams, developing and deploying imagery access and analysis capabilities for our customers using a tech stack that includes Go, Python, Java, Postgres and Kubernetes on major cloud platforms like Google Cloud. We emphasize scalable, observable systems leveraging open source technologies and standards when applicable.

The team is distributed throughout Europe and North America and thrives on clear asynchronous communication. Success in this role requires strong collaborative communication skills to build coworker relationships across several time zones as well as the ability to contribute to occasional team on-sites hosted in Planet’s global offices. 

This is a full-time, hybrid role which will require you to work from our Berlin 3 days per week.

Impact You’ll Own:

• Build, deploy and maintain performant, distributed large-scale services and highly-available APIs in Go, Java and/or Python with a strong emphasis on customer experience
• Work closely with engineers and product managers across multiple cross-functional teams to align product & engineering goals and objectives
• Write high-quality, maintainable, observable, and well-documented production code
• Participate in code reviews to maintain high code quality and standards
• Use AI tooling throughout the development lifecycle and holding AI-assisted work to the same bar as anything you'd write by hand
• Learn and grow as a developer while making a positive impact on our products and customers; bringing the team along with you as your expertise grows
• Own the operation of these APIs and services by embracing Site Reliability Engineering culture, measuring performance, load testing, creating and fine-tuning alerts, dashboards, runbooks, and responding to incidents
• Participate in rapid response on-call rotation in support of the team’s external and internal services

What You Bring:

• 4+ years of experience in software development within a production environment working preferably with Python, Java and/or Go
• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field such as Computer Science, Geosciences, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience
• Solid understanding of software engineering best practices and development methodologies
• Excellent teamwork and collaboration skills - written and verbal; you are comfortable writing an engineering design proposal and soliciting feedback to drive collaborative decisions
• Familiarity with GCP or AWS
• Ability to learn new technologies quickly and independently, navigate uncertain and sometimes ambiguous problem spaces, and take calculated risks
• Experience working with diverse data storage systems such as relational databases, document stores, and key-value stores
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills
• Experience with Git, large codebases, reviewing merge requests, and running complex CI/CD pipelines
• Comfortable working with Docker containers
• Solid intuition of when AI is useful in software development and when it is not
• Experience deploying to Kubernetes

What Makes You Stand Out:

• Familiarity with geospatial concepts and standards; you’ve worked with GeoTIFFs, GeoJSON, and STAC
• Familiarity with remotely sensed products and associated metadata; you know why someone wants an ortho-rectified product
• Worked with observability platforms such as Grafana

Application Deadline:

11:45p / 23:45 CET on the date stated below. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. This posting may be removed earlier than projected if a suitable pool of applications has been received. For this reason, we recommend applying as soon as you are able to.

Benefits While Working at Planet:

These offerings are dependent on employment type and geographical location, based upon applicable law or company policy.

• Paid time off including vacation, holidays and company-wide days off 
• Employee Wellness Program 
• Home Office Reimbursement
• Monthly Phone and Internet Reimbursement
• Tuition Reimbursement and access to LinkedIn Learning
• Equity 
• Volunteering Paid Time Off

Compensation:

The expected starting gross salary range for this role is listed below. Individual placement within this range is determined objectively based on gender-neutral criteria such as your skills, qualifications, and professional experience. This position may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses and/or equity.

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Why we care so much about Belonging. 
We’re dedicated to helping the whole Planet, and to do that we must strive to represent all of it within each of our offices and on all of our teams. That’s why Planet is guided by an ultimate north star of Belonging—dreaming big as we approach our ongoing work.  If this job intrigues you, but you’re thinking you might not have all the qualifications, please... do apply!  At Planet, we are looking for well-rounded people from around the world who can contribute to more ways than just what is listed in this job description.  We don’t just fill positions, we aspire to fulfill people’s careers, most excited about folks who are motivated by our underlying humanitarian efforts.  We are a few orbits around the sun before we get to where we want to be, so we hope you’re excited to come along for the ride. 

EEO statement:
Planet is committed to building a community where everyone belongs and we invite people from all backgrounds to apply. Planet is an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Know Your Rights.

Accommodations: 
Planet is an inclusive community and we know that everyone has their own needs. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the hiring process, please reach out to accommodations@planet.com or contact your recruiter with your request. Your message will be confidential and we will be happy to assist you.

Privacy Policy: By clicking "Apply Now" at the top of this job posting, I acknowledge that I have read the Planet Data Privacy Notice for California Staff Members and Applicants, and hereby consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of my personal information as described therein.

Privacy Policy (European Applicants): By clicking "Apply Now" at the top of this job posting, I acknowledge that I have read the Candidate Privacy Notice GDPR Planet Labs Europe, and hereby consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of my personal information as described therein.

AI in Our Interviewing Process: Planet is committed to providing an exceptional interview experience for all candidates. We currently use Metaview to better focus on candidates and less on trying to capture notes. As such, with the candidate's consent, select interviews may be recorded and include a "Planet AI Notetaker" for transcription and summarization purposes. Should an interview involve use of AI interview technologies, the candidate will receive notification and have the ability to opt out both in advance and/or real-time. Opting out will not affect one's candidacy.

Candidate AI Policy: Planet embraces Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, and we encourage its responsible use. We understand that candidates may use various resources, including AI tools, to prepare for interviews and assessments. However, during any live interview stage or when actively completing assessments for this position, the use of AI tools—e.g. Large Language Models (LLMs), deep fake technology, etc.—is strictly prohibited unless explicitly prompted by an interviewer or assessment instructions. If you are unsure about acceptable use, please contact your recruiter for clarification. If an AI tool or similar technology is desired as an accommodation, please contact accommodations@planet.com with your request for assistance. Your message will be confidential, and we will be happy to assist you. Violation of this policy may result in disqualification of your application.