Senior Engineering Manager - AI Geospatial Assistant Team
Planet Labs · San Francisco, United States · 7mo ago
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 mission is to image the entire world every day, making global change visible, accessible, and actionable. We are at a critical inflection point: operationalizing promising AI research into delivery-focused enterprise "productization". To drive this, we are building a new product group focused on launching an AI Geospatial Assistant that transforms how our customers interact with global imagery to solve high-stakes problems in forensics and daily change detection.
Our goal is to make these complex insights accessible through an intuitive interface that requires zero user training. Operating with a zero-to-one startup mindset, this team prioritizes weekly learning velocity and customer-driven graduation criteria to move rapidly from private alpha to general availability.
As our Senior Engineering Manager, you are tasked with leading the team, with your product partner through this transition. You will lead a high-velocity squad of engineers, transitioning geospatial AI capabilities into a robust, market-ready product. Your focus is on operational excellence, defining success thresholds, managing scope, and ensuring that our bleeding-edge tech graduates into a dependable tool that provides a durable competitive advantage for our customers.
This is not a traditional Engineering Manager role. The EM for this team is expected to be personally AI-native, someone who builds with AI tools daily, thinks actively about how AI is changing what engineering teams look like, and is prepared to pioneer a culture where AI is a core collaborator in the development process, not a tool to be managed cautiously.
This is a full-time, hybrid role which will require you to work from our San Francisco office 3 days per week.
Impact You'll Own:
- Build a High-Density Talent Engine: You will be responsible for the full talent lifecycle—from sourcing and hiring the initial high-agency founding squad to designing an onboarding experience that gets specialists productive in a complex geospatial domain.
- Establish a Culture of Extreme Ownership: Foster an environment where engineers own customer outcomes rather than just technical tasks. You will define what accountability looks like in a high-uncertainty, non-deterministic AI environment.
- Team Operations: Design and iterate on the team’s "operating system" (e.g., sprint cadences, RFC processes, and automated testing) to ensure the shift from research to product is supported by rigorous engineering discipline.
- Collaborate with AI Researchers: Work closely with our AI Research Team to understand their models, workflows, and emerging capabilities, then guide your team in translating research into production ready systems that deliver real value to users.
- Establish Evaluation-Led Development: Ensure the team builds "Evals" (automated benchmarks) before they build features, ensuring that we measure improvement velocity rather than just raw output.
- Career Architecture & Mentorship: Actively coach and mentor a diverse group of engineers (from Fullstack to Applied AI), navigating their career paths and maintaining high levels of psychological safety and engagement.
- Strategic Roadmapping & De-risking: Partner with Product and Design to translate the ai.planet.com vision into a realistic technical roadmap, identifying "long-pole" technical risks early to keep the team unblocked.
- Cross-Functional Leadership: Act as a "board of directors" member alongside Product and Design partners, ensuring engineering efforts are laser-focused on forensics and change-detection use cases.
What You Bring:
- 6+ years of relevant experience
- 4+ years of experience leading software engineering teams
- Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field
- Track record of hiring and leading founding engineering teams in a startup or high-growth "intrapreneurial" environment.
- Personally AI-native: you write production code with AI tools, have strong opinions on how AI is changing the engineering SDLC, and are prepared to build a culture where AI is a core collaborator, not a compliance consideration
- Experience and enthusiasm for leading AI engineering teams that have successfully elevated research prototypes into production-grade applications. This enthusiasm should not only inform the product features, but should also foster a culture of developer workflows that take an AI-assisted development approach
- Expert in the "human element" of engineering—managing conflict, delivering difficult feedback, and keeping a team motivated through the inevitable pivots of an early-stage product.
- Ability to identify "process bugs" (why a team is slowing down) and implement the cultural or structural changes needed to restore velocity.
- Technical Breadth: While you may not be the deepest specialist on the team, you have the breadth to synthesize input from AI researchers and frontend experts to make sound architectural and personnel decisions. This includes an ability to identify optimizations that may be better handled with a collaboration with a research team (eg. request development of a fine tuned model for a slow but simple LLM call)
- Pragmatic Execution: A "good enough—move on" mentality that avoids seeking perfection at the cost of delivering meaningful customer value.
- Impact focused: You are excited by building an application that once launched, will give researchers, journalists, governments, and NGOs the ability to explore the world using natural language and surface crucial insights that used to take months to find.
- Experience with geospatial data or planetary-scale analytics is highly preferred.
What Makes You Stand Out:
- LLM Observability and Monitoring: Prior experience with tools and techniques for managing non-deterministic systems (e.g., LangSmith, Arize, or similar).
- Public Leadership: You are comfortable representing the team’s work to executive leadership and external stakeholders, acting as a "shield" for your team so they can focus on building.
- Product-First Mindset: A track record of balancing technical excellence with the urgency of market delivery and "graduation criteria".
- Geospatial Context: Prior experience with geospatial data, satellite imagery, or planetary-scale analytics.
Application Deadline:
September 19, 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.
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.
Accommodations:
Planet is an inclusive community and we know that everyone has their own needs. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the hiring process, please reach out to accommodations@planet.com or contact your recruiter with your request. Your message will be confidential and we will be happy to assist you.
Privacy Policy: By clicking "Apply Now" at the top of this job posting, I acknowledge that I have read the Planet Data Privacy Notice for California Staff Members and Applicants, and hereby consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of my personal information as described therein.
Privacy Policy (European Applicants): By clicking "Apply Now" at the top of this job posting, I acknowledge that I have read the Candidate Privacy Notice GDPR Planet Labs Europe, and hereby consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of my personal information as described therein.
AI in Our Interviewing Process: Planet is committed to providing an exceptional interview experience for all candidates. We currently use Metaview to better focus on candidates and less on trying to capture notes. As such, with the candidate's consent, select interviews may be recorded and include a "Planet AI Notetaker" for transcription and summarization purposes. Should an interview involve use of AI interview technologies, the candidate will receive notification and have the ability to opt out both in advance and/or real-time. Opting out will not affect one's candidacy.
Candidate AI Policy: Planet embraces Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, and we encourage its responsible use. We understand that candidates may use various resources, including AI tools, to prepare for interviews and assessments. However, during any live interview stage or when actively completing assessments for this position, the use of AI tools—e.g. Large Language Models (LLMs), deep fake technology, etc.—is strictly prohibited unless explicitly prompted by an interviewer or assessment instructions. If you are unsure about acceptable use, please contact your recruiter for clarification. If an AI tool or similar technology is desired as an accommodation, please contact accommodations@planet.com with your request for assistance. Your message will be confidential, and we will be happy to assist you. Violation of this policy may result in disqualification of your application.