Application Guide

How to Apply for Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

at Planet

🏢 About Planet

Planet operates the largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites, capturing daily imagery of the entire planet. This unique capability enables unprecedented monitoring of environmental change, agriculture, and global security, making it a mission-driven company where your work directly contributes to positive impact.

About This Role

As a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll bridge the gap between customer needs and Planet's satellite data platform. You'll design and build custom full-stack solutions, from front-end interfaces to cloud infrastructure, directly solving real-world problems for customers like governments and NGOs.

💡 A Day in the Life

Start with a stand-up with your distributed team, then dive into coding a custom dashboard for a customer tracking crop health. Midday, you'll hop on a video call with a client to gather feedback on a prototype, and spend the afternoon iterating on the solution and deploying updates to AWS.

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Interview Prep

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🎯 Who Planet Is Looking For

  • Experienced in full-stack development with 6+ years building robust, production-ready software, including front-end, back-end, and cloud services.
  • Proficient in Python and familiar with geospatial libraries (e.g., Rasterio, GDAL) and concepts, able to process satellite imagery and geodata.
  • Comfortable with cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and CI/CD pipelines, automating deployments and managing scalable systems.
  • Customer-facing with strong communication skills, able to translate complex operational challenges into clear technical requirements and iterate rapidly with feedback.

📝 Tips for Applying to Planet

1

Tailor your resume to highlight geospatial projects, even if side projects, and explicitly mention libraries like Rasterio or Shapely.

2

In your cover letter, mention a specific Planet product (e.g., PlanetScope, SkySat) and how you would use it to solve a problem (e.g., agriculture monitoring).

3

Showcase any experience working directly with customers or stakeholders, as this role heavily involves client interaction.

4

Include links to your GitHub or portfolio with examples of full-stack projects, especially those with geospatial or cloud components.

5

Emphasize your ability to work autonomously in a remote setting, as Planet is remote-first for this role.

✉️ What to Emphasize in Your Cover Letter

["Your passion for using satellite data for environmental or social impact, aligning with Planet's mission.", 'Specific examples of building full-stack solutions that integrated geospatial data and cloud infrastructure.', 'Your experience in customer-facing roles, demonstrating how you gathered requirements and delivered tailored solutions.', "Your proficiency with Python and geospatial libraries, and how you've used them in past projects."]

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🔍 Research Before Applying

To stand out, make sure you've researched:

  • → Explore Planet's product documentation for PlanetScope and SkySat to understand data types and APIs.
  • → Read about Planet's Forward Deployed Engineering team culture and case studies on their blog.
  • → Understand the basics of Earth observation and common use cases like agriculture, forestry, and urban planning.
  • → Check out Planet's open-source contributions on GitHub to see their tech stack and coding style.

💬 Prepare for These Interview Topics

Based on this role, you may be asked about:

1 Design a system to process and serve satellite imagery to a customer with specific needs (e.g., deforestation alerts).
2 How would you handle a customer request that is technically infeasible with current Planet data?
3 Walk through a past project where you built a full-stack application with geospatial components.
4 Explain the difference between raster and vector data, and when to use each.
5 How would you optimize a Python script that processes large GeoTIFF files for performance?
Practice Interview Questions →

⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Submitting a generic application without mentioning geospatial experience or interest in satellite data.
  • Overlooking the customer-facing aspect; don't just focus on technical skills without showing interpersonal skills.
  • Failing to demonstrate understanding of cloud infrastructure; be ready to discuss AWS services like S3, Lambda, or ECS.

📅 Application Timeline

This position is open until filled. However, we recommend applying as soon as possible as roles at mission-driven organizations tend to fill quickly.

Typical hiring timeline:

1

Application Review

1-2 weeks

2

Initial Screening

Phone call or written assessment

3

Interviews

1-2 rounds, usually virtual

✓

Offer

Congratulations!

Ready to Apply?

Good luck with your application to Planet!

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