Senior Avionics Systems 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, and The Netherlands.

About the Role:  

Planet is working on the next generation small satellite bus that will host a high resolution optical imaging payload (Pelican) and a hyperspectral payload (Carbon Mapper). We are seeking a Senior Avionics Systems Engineer to help build, integrate and launch Planet’s next generation satellites. You will take responsibility for the end-to-end satellite avionics and will work with the various subsystem hardware and software engineers to mature their subsystems . You will work alongside SW, EE, Payload, RF/Comms, GNC, ME and Thermal teams to ensure the bus architecture can sufficiently meet current requirements and is flexible and adaptable for future missions. You will qualify and improve performance, reliability, and lifetime by working with the reliability and qualification teams. You will work closely with systems engineering, missions, and manufacturing teams to ensure mission success. Simply put, you will build the space systems of tomorrow.

Impact You’ll Own:

• System level design of avionics, payload electrical, compute, and power systems
• Make evolutionary improvements and mature the the design, performance, reliability, lifetime, and cost of the small satellite platform
• Maintain power and data definitions at the subsystem as well as the spacecraft level, and develop appropriate satellite simulation environments for power and data budgets
• Lead & support design efforts for hardware and software validation and verification (V&V) frameworks
• Support the architect design for next generation medium resolution and future missions

What You Bring:

• BS in Electrical/Aerospace/Computer Science or similar work experience
• 6+ years of architect experience designing and maturing electronics to market, ability to review low-level design decisions, and understand their impact to the larger system/mission
• Experience in control, power, compute, and embedded systems and hands on bring-up, validation, and system integration experience
• Excellent understanding of cross-team dependencies including mechanical, thermal, structural, and space environmental effects
• Excellent understanding of the latest COTS technologies. In particular, compute architectures including FPGAs, MCUs, MPUs, CPUs, GPUs, DSP, memories, both from performance and space reliability standpoint. Experience with low-speed and high-speed communication protocols such as I2C, SPI, CAN, CAN-FD, FlexRay, Ethernet, PCIe, SerialIO etc
• Understanding of the aerospace product development lifecycle process, including analysis and design, development tools and technologies, release and version control, testing methodologies and deployment management

What Makes You Stand Out:

• Excellent understanding of cross-team dependencies including mechanical, thermal, structural, and space environmental effects
• Extensive aerospace electronics and software experience
• Experience with Altium or similar EDA tools, high-density PCB design, high speed clock trees
• Experience in Linux, Python, and data analysis
• Excited by working in an agile, fast-paced environment, even in times of uncertainty and ambiguity
• Experience providing mentorship for engineers from diverse disciplines

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
• Pare