Software Engineer, AI Systems & Infrastructure AI Geospatial Assistant Team

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 Planets data to develop new technologies drive revenue power research and solve our worlds 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:

Planets mission is to image the entire world every day making global change visible accessible and actionable. We are at a critical inflection point: moving from broad AI research to a delivery-focused productization model. 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 a Software Engineer you will help to build the backend systems that bring our AI Geospatial Assistant to life. While our research teams develop the core models you will be responsible for the last mile of delivery architecting the high-throughput backend services scaling our systems and ensuring our agentic workflows are fast reliable and cost-effective at a global scale.

This is a full-time hybrid role which will require you to work from our San Francisco office 3 days per week.

Impact Youll Own:

• Develop and optimize multimodal LLM applications
• Work with and support the infrastructure needed for scaling and delivering embeddings
• Architect AI Orchestration: Build and maintain the high-scale systems required for LLM orchestration and agentic workflows ensuring low-latency responses across petabytes of imagery
• Operationalize Research: Collaborate with backend engineers to transition experimental AI models into stable low-latency production inference endpoints
• Build AI Observability: Implement production-grade monitoring logging and tracing for our AI services to ensure reliability and facilitate rapid debugging of our systems
• Benchmark Performance: Define model success criteria and instrumentation to ensure the assistant consistently outperforms vanilla LLM alternatives

What You Bring:

• Bachelors Degree in computer science or an equivalent field
• 4 years of experience building and scaling high-performance backend systems in Python Go
• Proficiency in AWS or GCP including experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and CI/CD pipelines for high-availability services
• Solid familiarity with LLM orchestration frameworks (LangChain LlamaIndex) from an implementation perspectiveknowing how to build reliable agents handle retries and manage state
• Proficiency with vector search pipelines and high-performance distributed computing

What Makes You Stand Out:

• Experience with distributed computing frameworks like Docker Kubernetes or Ray Serve
• A track record of applying scientific rigor to ground truth verification in AI models to maintain user trust and credibility

Application Deadline:

June 4 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.
Were 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. Thats why Planet is guided by an ultimate north star of Belongingdreaming big as we approach our ongoing work. If this job intrigues you but youre 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 dont just fill positions we aspire to fulfill peoples 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 youre 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 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 are currently exploring AI interviewing technologies to better focus on candidates and less on trying to capture notes. As such with the candidates 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 ones 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 toolse.g. Large Language Models (LLMs) deep fake technology 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 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.