VP of Defense & Intelligence Engineering

Planet Labs PBC; Denver (CO); Hybrid; USD 257,000 - 322,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision

HSA

Paid Time Off

Parental Leave (16 weeks)

Wellness Program

Home Office Reimbursement

Phone/Internet Reimbursement

Tuition Reimbursement

Equity

Commuter Benefits

Volunteer Time Off

Job summary

Planet Labs PBC is seeking a visionary executive to lead the Defense and Intelligence Engineering team, scaling the software org responsible for dual-use products built from planetary data. You will own architecture, delivery, and secure pipelines across government and commercial environments.

Ideal candidates bring 15+ years in software engineering, 8+ years in multi-disciplinary leadership, and strong ITAR/EAR and clearance readiness, with deep cloud and ML integration expertise.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in software engineering and systems architecture for high-scale data or geospatial apps.
• 8+ years leading multi-disciplinary engineering orgs (software, data/ML, platform, cloud).
• Experience with ITAR/EAR compliant pipelines and data handling.
• Track record in end-to-end dual-use or defense software at scale (domain awareness, change detection, spatial monitoring).
• Active high-level government security clearance or eligibility for Top Secret upon hire.
• Deep expertise in distributed cloud architectures and high-throughput data processing.
• Bachelor's in CS/SE/EE/Data Science or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and scale multi-disciplinary software engineering teams building end-to-end dual-use products (GMS, MDA).
• Define software architecture, data models, and standards for high-throughput geospatial analytics and real-time alerting.
• Oversee ITAR/EAR-compliant deployment pipelines and regulatory compliance.
• Partner with Product Management to translate requirements into roadmaps and sprint plans.
• Direct ML model integration and agentic workflow implementations into the product stack.
• Drive software delivery metrics, system reliability, and secure cloud deployments across environments.

Skills

Software engineering leadership

Geospatial/computer vision

Distributed cloud architectures

ITAR/EAR compliance

Security clearance readiness

Executive leadership

Education

Bachelors in CS/SE/EE/Data Science

Masters or PhD in CS/ML

Tools

Cloud infrastructure

API infrastructure

Machine learning integration

Job description

Planet Labs PBC is seeking a visionary executive to lead the Defense and Intelligence Engineering team, scaling the software org responsible for dual-use products built from planetary data. You will own architecture, delivery, and secure pipelines across government and commercial environments.

Ideal candidates bring 15+ years in software engineering, 8+ years in multi-disciplinary leadership, and strong ITAR/EAR and clearance readiness, with deep cloud and ML integration expertise.