Senior Forward Deployment Engineer, Strategic Customer Engagements U.S

Washington, D.C.

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:

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to help develop transformative solutions for our most strategic accounts, starting with our Global Defense and Security customers. In this role, you will work directly with key partners, acting as a senior technical contributor and hands‑on builder within a collaborative engineering team. Your mission will be to tackle complex, mission‑critical customer challenges by building high‑impact software solutions.

You will have a high degree of autonomy to design and build what is needed, turning ambiguous requirements into functional and reliable software. Your work will directly contribute to delivering on critical customer commitments and will help inform future product development. This role is ideal for an individual contributor who thrives in dynamic environments and enjoys taking ownership of complex technical problems from design to delivery.

This is a full‑time, hybrid role which will require you to work from our Arlington, VA office 3 days per week.

Impact You'll Own:

• Spearhead the full development lifecycle from discovery and decomposition to designing, building, and deploying bespoke solutions for customer challenges.
• Develop robust, full‑stack software, including front‑end, back‑end, data integration, cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS), and CI/CD pipelines.
• Collaborate directly with customers to understand operational challenges and translate them into technical requirements.
• Analyze customer solutions to identify reusable patterns that inform broader platform development.
• Leverage the latest AI tooling and an AI‑first mindset to drive rapid iteration, deliver value quickly, and adapt to evolving requirements with a bias for action.
• Mentor team members, conducts code reviews, and helps foster a collaborative engineering culture.
• Execute critical commitments on time to directly support key customer relationships and business goals.

What You Bring:

• 6+ years of relevant work experience in software engineering or an equivalent technical role.
• Bachelor's degree in a Computer Science or other relevant field.
• Experience with geospatial software development and concepts (e.g., Rasterio, Fiona, Shapely, Open Layers, GDAL).
• AWS or GCP experience.
• Proficiency in Python.
• Knowledge of software engineering best practices, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, and testing methodologies.
• Ability to effectively communicate complex technical concepts to diverse internal…