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 headquartered in San Francisco, California, Earth.

About the Role:  

Planet is looking for an exceptional Director of Engineering to lead our Customer Experience team with a proven background in hiring, mentoring, and leading high functioning engineering teams.

As Director of engineering, Customer Experience you will lead the engineering teams that build our applications, interfaces, and APIs driving our core customer experience. This includes our marquee Planet Explorer application as well as many others including several single page apps, desktop applications, SDKs and command line tools. You will ensure the teams are building a consistent and scalable interface to our daily imagery and its derivative products.

You will work closely with your team and peers in product, engineering, and design to build and execute a roadmap that helps accomplish Planet’s mission. You will operate the systems that drive many of our applications and take responsibility for a stable and high quality experience for our customers. To enable Planet’s strategy, you will ensure we are hiring and developing a first class engineering team.

Impact you’ll Own:

• Direct the engineering work across your teams. Collaborate with your partners in product and design to construct and execute on our product roadmap. Break down cross team projects into relevant parts and see them through to success.
• Help develop and maintain a strong engineering culture with the team. Help the team make timely technical decisions.
• Grow and mentor the members of the team. Recruit and hire when necessary.
• Cultivate a culture of operational excellence within Planet by working to improve service engagements driven by SLOs and SLAs.
• Act as the technical ambassador for the team’s core offerings to the rest of the organization. Evangelize our capabilities internally.
• Identify future needs based on incoming roadmap requests. Keep our technology choices up to date.

What you bring:

• Strong experience leading teams focused on building customer facing products, working closely with a product manager. Preferably experience leading multiple teams and/or projects that span multiple teams.
• Strong experience coordinating multiple teams to deliver complex projects.
• Experience building out an engineering team and structure. Know when and how to hire an excellent team.
• Experience building services that leverage cloud-based infrastructure at scale.
• Experience leading teams designing and building APIs and Web applications (preferably both)
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and asynchronous.
• Experience managing teams with an on-call rotation
• Familiarity or experience with leading an all-remote organization

What makes you stand out

• Strong alignment with Planet’s mission
• Past experience with Geospatial systems or concepts

Benefits While Working at Planet:

• Comprehensive Health Plan
• Wellness program and onsite massages in specific offices
• Flexible Time Off
• Recognition Programs
• Commuter Benefits
• Learning and Tuition Reimbursement
• Parental Leave
• Offsites and Happy Hours
• Volunteering Benefits

Some Press About Us: 

Our CEO, Will Marshall featured on TED and featured in a Planet Blog

“Planet: Bringing Space Back Down to Earth”

Tiny, privately owned satellites are changing how we view the Earth features in NBC News

“Planet And Rocket Lab Create Mission Patch To Honor Women In Aerospace” —Planet Blog

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 with diversity, equity and inclusion.  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. 

#LI-REMOTE#LI-CM1