Senior Software Engineer, Mission Optimization (Hybrid)

Linuxconfig; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 163,000 - 203,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

HSA with company contribution

Paid time off

Parental leave 16 weeks

Wellness program

Home office reimbursement

Phone and Internet reimbursement

Tuition reimbursement

Equity

Commuter benefits

Job summary

Planet is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for Mission Optimization in San Francisco. You will own optimization initiatives end to end, collaborating with spacecraft and systems engineers to move ideas into production.

You will design and maintain mission-critical software, apply data-driven analysis to improve fleet performance, and mentor junior engineers while aligning with product and operations for measurable outcomes.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field
• Deep proficiency in Python or a comparable language
• Ability to take an ambiguous, loosely scoped problem and drive it to a measurable outcome
• Data-driven approach, including statistical analysis over large datasets
• Effective written and verbal communication with technical and non-technical audiences; mentoring engineers

Responsibilities

• Own significant optimization initiatives end to end – problem definition, data analysis, solution design, implementation, and measurement against fleet SLAs and KPIs
• Design, develop, and maintain mission-critical software that schedules and optimizes activities across our satellite constellations
• Define concepts of operations for current fleets and for new missions with spacecraft, imaging, and systems engineering teams
• Analyze operational data to surface inefficiencies and justify improvements
• Mentor or lead engineers on the team
• Represent the team's technical position with stakeholders across engineering, operations, and product

Skills

Python

Software design

Data-driven analysis

Mentoring

Communication

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related field

Tools

Git

GitLab

Docker

CI/CD

Linux

Sentry

Datadog

Job description

Planet is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for Mission Optimization in San Francisco. You will own optimization initiatives end to end, collaborating with spacecraft and systems engineers to move ideas into production.

You will design and maintain mission-critical software, apply data-driven analysis to improve fleet performance, and mentor junior engineers while aligning with product and operations for measurable outcomes.