Senior Software Engineer, Manufacturing Systems

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, Austria, Slovenia, and The Netherlands.

About the Role:  

Planet’s Manufacturing Test Engineering team ensures that our spacecraft meet the high quality standards before they are shipped off for flight. We develop software applications and test infrastructure, ranging from automation frameworks, hardware device drivers, web applications, databases, APIs, and physical test fixtures. The tools we build enable us to rapidly test hardware, adapt quickly to new hardware revisions, and scale to dozens of units under test. While the Test Engineering team is often directly responsible for testing hardware at the beginning of the product’s lifecycle, the expectation is that these tools and procedures are primarily used by technicians as the product matures.

For this role, we are seeking an experienced software engineer to enhance our test infrastructure’s capabilities in support of increasing spacecraft production and testing capacity. The ideal candidate is innovative, proactive, and works with minimal supervision in a complex environment. While you will work as part of a distributed team, this position is required to be on-site on a weekly basis in our San Francisco facility.

Impact You’ll Own:

• Identify problems, collaborate with stakeholders and fellow engineers to lead the development of solutions, and be responsible for the project’s timely completion.
• Application development in python and javascript, using technologies such as PostgreSQL, InfluxDB, Docker, and Ansible.
• Design APIs to use both within our team and with cross-functional teams.
• Develop automated tests, CI/CD pipelines, and improve the developer experience.
• Interact with spacecraft hardware and develop tools, libraries, and tests that directly interface with the hardware.
• Lead standards and best practices in documentation, test-driven development, code review, and software development lifecycle processes.
• Refine and iterate on the above standards and processes to meet the team’s needs.
• Become a domain expert in Planet’s spacecraft manufacturing processes.

What You Bring:

• 10+ years of professional experience developing software applications
• 5+ years of experience with Linux/Unix
• 2+ years of experience using frontend web development libraries and frameworks such as React, Angular, or Vue.js
• Experience identifying a customer’s needs and delivering a solution in a timely manner
• Experience planning projects by identifying dependencies, breaking the work into pieces, and collaborating with teammates to complete the project
• Experience with unit testing, continuous integration, documentation, and code reviews
• Ability to debug complex interconnected systems

What Makes You Stand Out:

• Experience having made measurable improvements to system reliability, uptime, or performance
• Experience working with ambiguous requirements
• Experience automating hardware, or working with other complex interconnected systems
• Contributions to open source projects or other side projects

EAR/ITAR Requirements:

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