Senior Technical Program Manager

Planet Labs PBC; Arlington (VA); Hybrid; USD 143,000 - 179,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vis

HSA with company contribution

Paid Time Off and holidays

Equity

Home Office Reimbursement

Tuition Reimbursement and LinkedIn/LDS

Commuter Benefits

Job summary

Planet seeks a Technical Program Manager to drive the Insights Platform programs, illuminate team paths, and own end-to-end execution across multiple teams. You will build and manage end-to-end plans, schedules, metrics, risks, and stakeholder communications.

This full-time, hybrid role requires Arlington, VA presence 3 days per week and focuses on scaling data services and discovery experiences for customer applications.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of software development or program management in SaaS, data lifecycles, discovery/search engines, or cloud delivery.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field required.
• Experience leading cross-functional projects across a large organization.
• Experience with end-to-end product lifecycle from concept to deprecation.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional programs across Product, Tech Leads, Engineering, Design, and Data Science.
• Drive roadmap execution, translate inputs into realistic timelines with capacity checks.
• Ensure requirements are implemented to scope with engineering and design.
• Create and manage program schedules with incremental milestones and definitions of done.
• Manage external contract integration software developers and relationships.
• Identify dependencies and risks, make them actionable with stakeholders.
• Facilitate decision making with data-driven analysis and constructive debate.
• Communicate progress, priorities, risks, and plan changes across teams.
• Improve processes to scale development cycles and efficiency.

Skills

Software development

Program management

SaaS

Data lifecycles

Discovery/search engines

Cloud-based delivery

Cross-functional leadership

Analytics

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

Job description

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 worldwide and joining us from offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and The Netherlands.

About the Role

As a Technical Program Manager (TPM) at Planet, you will drive Planet's largest, complex efforts that cross many teams and organizational boundaries. You will act as an accelerant, focusing on illuminating the path for teams and owning the predictability of execution through the product lifecycle. You will work closely with team leads to develop and manage end to end program plans. This includes establishing and managing internal processes, schedules, metrics, risks, and clearly communicating them to project stakeholders.

This role is focused on Planet's Insights Platform development. This includes leading the technical programs that power how customers find, process, and stream our data. You will focus on building new experiences to discover what is in our catalog and scaling the high-performance services that deliver data and insights directly to user applications.

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

Impact You'll Own

• Work with functions such as Product Managers, Tech Leads, Engineering Managers, Design, Data Science, and other Technical Program Managers.
• Drive product and engineering roadmap execution and delivery.
• Translate Product and Engineering inputs into realistic, capacity-checked timelines and reconcile commitments across teams to surface and resolve conflicts.
• Work closely with engineering to ensure product and design requirements are implemented to scope.
• Create and manage program schedules and break those into incremental, visible milestones with definitions of done.
• Manage relationship, scope and approve work for external contract integration software developers.
• Continuously identify dependencies and risks, and work with stakeholders to make them actionable while still small.
• Facilitate decision making and healthy escalation through data-driven analysis and constructive debate.
• Communicate vertically & horizontally across business and technical teams to keep stakeholders informed of progress, priorities, risks, and changes to requirements or plans.
• Drive for results by continuously improving ways of working and processes, now and for the future.

What You Bring

• 6+ years of software development or program management experience in the areas of SaaS, complex data lifecycles, discovery/search engines, or cloud-based content delivery.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field.
• Experience leading cross-functional projects across a broad organization.
• Experience with the product lifecycle: concept through development, launch preparation, go-to-market, deprecations, and end-of-life.
• Experience optimizing cross-team delivery cycles and establishing predictable execution patterns within a matrixed engineering organization.
• Experience coordinating high-stakes technical programs across global timezones, with a focus on building asynchronous workflows and healthy decision-making cultures.
• Track record of managing system migrations or service consolidations, specifically moving from fragmented legacy tools to unified platform endpoints.
• Analytical, problem-solving, and creative thinking skills paired with the ability to communicate findings and recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to balance the tactical day-to-day with forward-looking improvements to scale operational efficiencies.
• Actively explores AI technologies to automate workflows, improve data, or enhance team productivity.

What Makes You Stand Out

• Experience with remote sensing, earth observation data, or geospatial systems.
• Experience working with remote, worldwide teams.
• A desire to improve processes, tools, and ways of working to scale development cycles.
• A growth mindset and a desire to learn quickly.

Application Deadline

September 20, 2026 at 11:59p PT

Benefits While Working at Planet

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

• Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision plans
• Health Savings Account (HSA) with a company contribution
• Generous Paid Time Off in addition to holidays and company-wide days off
• 16 Weeks of Paid Parental Leave
• Wellness Program and Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Home Office Reimbursement
• Monthly Phone and Internet Reimbursement
• Tuition Reimbursement and access to LinkedIn Learning
• Equity
• Commuter Benefits (if local to an office)
• Volunteering Paid Time Off

Compensation

The US base salary range for this full-time position at the commencement of employment is listed below. Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary short-term and long-term incentives (bonus and equity). The final salary range is determined by job related experience, skills and location. The range displays our typical hiring range for new hire salaries in US locations only. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

US National Salary Range: $142,800 — $178,500 USD

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.