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Salary: USD 142,800 - 178,500 / annual
Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites in history, delivering empirical earth observation data via a cloud-based platform to commercial, environmental, humanitarian, and defense sectors. As a Senior Data Engineer on the GMS Data Team, you will own, architect, and build production, enterprise-scale data ecosystems using modern cloud technologies to power mission-critical, customer-facing products.
Your scope focuses on the architecture and evolution of data systems supporting global monitoring products designed for persistent, high-cadence monitoring and active intelligence, particularly for Defense and Intelligence customers. You will act as a strategic partner to cross-functional stakeholders, translating complex requirements into robust, scalable solutions. You will build and design data solutions end-to-end: from high-level architecture and implementation to CI/CD, orchestration, automated QA, and seamless integration into production systems.
Key responsibilities include: architecting and overseeing robust, high-availability data pipelines while establishing standards for maintaining, troubleshooting, and optimizing existing ecosystems; collaborating with global product, commercial, and engineering leads to design and execute long-term data strategy for products in your scope; and driving high-level mentorship, technical design reviews, and architectural integrity across the Data Team while setting standards for code quality.
You will be a senior member of the Data Team within the Software Engineering organization, working alongside data scientists, engineers, and analysts. This role is ideal for an expert data engineer looking to lead the evolution of complex systems and deliver transformative technology to the defense sector. The ideal candidate is an independent operator who thrives in a dynamic, global environment and is deeply passionate about Planet's mission and national security solutions.
This is a full-time, hybrid role requiring 3 days per week in the Arlington, VA office. Note: This position requires access to export-controlled information; employment is contingent upon the candidate's ability to access applicable export-controlled information without additional export licensing.
**Requirements:**
- 6-8 years of relevant work experience in data engineering with a track record of technical leadership
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant field
- Expertise in designing and implementing end-to-end data architectures for global-scale, customer-facing solutions, with a focus on data integrity and efficiency
- Expert-level proficiency in Python and SQL for complex ETL/ELT pipeline construction, including event-driven data architectures
- Proactive, self-starter mindset with the ability to lead problem-solving initiatives in a dynamic, high-stakes environment
- Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate between technical execution and high-level business requirements
- Deep experience in maintaining enterprise-grade, peer-reviewed codebases and advanced CI/CD workflows using GitLab CI, Docker, and Kubernetes
- Significant experience with cloud-native architectures (GCP preferred)
- Experience tuning storage formats such as Parquet to ensure sub-second query performance for consumers
**Preferred qualifications:**
- Experience using modern data tooling (e.g., dbt) for pipeline inputs to customer-facing production systems
- Experience leveraging Infrastructure as Code tooling (e.g., Terraform) to manage cloud architecture
- Experience architecting solutions for geospatial datasets
- Knowledge of earth observation and/or satellite operation concepts
