Application Guide

How to Apply for Senior Software Engineer

at Planet

🏢 About Planet

Planet is unique as a company that operates the world's largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites, providing daily global coverage that enables environmental monitoring, disaster response, and sustainable development. Their mission of 'impactful stewardship' through timely satellite data combines cutting-edge space technology with practical applications for climate change, agriculture, and security. Working here means contributing to systems that literally help see and protect our planet.

About This Role

This Senior Software Engineer role focuses on building and deploying computing services for air-gapped satellite operations and image processing platforms in customer environments. You'll be architecting novel systems for secure, scaled deployments while translating ambiguous requirements from cross-functional stakeholders into reliable infrastructure. This is impactful because you'll directly enable Planet's core capability of delivering Earth-imaging data to customers who depend on it for critical decisions.

💡 A Day in the Life

A typical day might involve collaborating with the tight-knit team to architect solutions for customer deployments, writing infrastructure-as-code with Terraform/Ansible for air-gapped environments, and troubleshooting edge cases in satellite image processing pipelines. You'd likely spend time clarifying requirements with stakeholders, improving system reliability through testing and monitoring, and deploying Kubernetes clusters using tools like Talos or RKE2 for Planet's global operations.

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Interview Prep

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🎯 Who Planet Is Looking For

  • Has 10+ years experience specifically with cloud-native infrastructure for services that require high reliability and availability in production environments
  • Demonstrates deep practical expertise with Terraform/Ansible for infrastructure-as-code and Kubernetes deployment tools like Talos, RKE2, or k3s for both cloud and bare-metal environments
  • Can show experience translating ambiguous stakeholder requirements into concrete technical solutions, particularly for air-gapped or secure deployment scenarios
  • Possesses advanced Python and Bash skills for building services and tooling, with evidence of solving complex edge cases and failure modes in previous roles

📝 Tips for Applying to Planet

1

Highlight specific experience with air-gapped deployments or secure computing environments, as this is central to Planet's satellite operations platform

2

Quantify your experience with Terraform/Ansible and Kubernetes tools - mention specific projects where you deployed to bare-metal or used Talos/RKE2/Proxmox

3

Prepare examples of how you've clarified ambiguous requirements from cross-functional stakeholders, especially in satellite, aerospace, or government contracting contexts

4

Demonstrate your understanding of Planet's mission by connecting your infrastructure experience to applications in Earth observation or remote sensing

5

Show how you've improved system reliability in previous roles - be ready with specific metrics around availability improvements or edge case resolutions

✉️ What to Emphasize in Your Cover Letter

['Your experience with air-gapped or secure deployment architectures and how it applies to satellite operations environments', 'Specific examples of translating ambiguous stakeholder requirements into reliable infrastructure solutions', 'How your cloud-native and Kubernetes expertise supports scalable, available services for critical applications', "Why Planet's mission of Earth stewardship through satellite data resonates with your technical experience and career goals"]

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🔍 Research Before Applying

To stand out, make sure you've researched:

  • → Planet's satellite constellations (Dove, SkySat) and their daily imaging capabilities to understand the data pipeline you'd be supporting
  • → Planet's customer use cases in agriculture, forestry, disaster response, and defense to understand deployment requirements
  • → The company's recent projects or partnerships that might involve air-gapped or secure deployments
  • → Planet's technical blog or engineering publications to understand their current infrastructure challenges and approaches

💬 Prepare for These Interview Topics

Based on this role, you may be asked about:

1 Walk through your experience deploying Kubernetes in air-gapped or secure environments using tools like Talos or RKE2
2 How would you architect a system for satellite image processing that needs to scale while maintaining high availability?
3 Describe a time you had to clarify ambiguous requirements from non-technical stakeholders and translate them into technical solutions
4 What approaches have you used to study failure modes and improve reliability in cloud-native services?
5 How do you balance building novel systems with ensuring operational stability in a satellite operations context?
Practice Interview Questions →

⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Applying with only public cloud experience without demonstrating bare-metal or air-gapped deployment expertise
  • Generic infrastructure experience without specific examples using Terraform/Ansible and the Kubernetes tools mentioned
  • Focusing only on technical implementation without showing ability to work with ambiguous requirements from cross-functional stakeholders

📅 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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