Director of Software Engineering

The Role

The Department Engineering is seeking a Director to lead the transformation of Spire's constellation operations from a manual, operator-driven model to a fully autonomous, self-healing, and data intelligent system. This role requires a deep understanding of SRE principles, reliability engineering, and large-scale automation.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the technical roadmap for autonomous constellation operations
• Set the architectural direction for the data platform, reliability systems, and automation infrastructure
• Stay hands-on: review code, prototype solutions, and get into the details when it matters
• Establish engineering standards across code quality, system design, testing, and observability, and hold the team to them
• Be the person engineers come to when the problem is genuinely hard
• Lead the shift from manual, operator-driven processes to fully automated and self-healing operations
• Define and drive toward SLOs, error budgets, and reliability targets for the constellation
• Partner with satellite operations and mission teams to translate pain into software solutions
• Be the technical voice of the team in company-wide conversations about architecture, infrastructure, and platform strategy
• Influence how Spire thinks about automation, data, and AI/ML across the broader engineering organization

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 in a technical leadership or staff-level individual contributor role
• Demonstrated track record building and shipping reliable production systems at scale
• Strong foundation in Python, distributed systems, data platforms, and cloud infrastructure
• Experience hiring and developing engineers
• Strong communication and influence skills to drive technical decisions across teams

Basic Skills/Qualifications

• Experience with SRE principles, reliability engineering, or large-scale automation
• Experience applying AI/ML or advanced analytics to operational or monitoring problems
• Experience writing performance software in Rust
• Experience building data lakes, telemetry platforms, or observability infrastructure at scale
• Experience leading teams through technical transformations

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in space systems, aerospace, or highly constrained real-time environments
• Experience in launching satellites
• Experience in launching satellites

Location

Boulder, Colorado, United States

Company Information

Spire operates a hybrid work model, and this position will require you to work a minimum of three days per week in the office. Access to US export-controlled software and/or technology may be required for this role. If needed, Spire will arrange the necessary licenses—this is not something candidates need to have before applying.

The anticipated base salary range for this position is listed below. Final base salary for this role will be based on the location, skills, experience and qualifications. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for commissions and annual equity awards. This role is also eligible for our employee benefits program, including vacation, sick, and personal time off; optional medical, dental, vision, life, and disability coverage; a 401(K) plan; health and wellness reimbursement program; and participation in Spire’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

Base Salary Range $171,000—$202,500 USD

Global Perks:

• Name Your Satellite Program (NYSP)
• Launch Attendance
• Generous Time Off Policy
• Education Assistance Program
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Fitness Reimbursement
• Healthy snacks & beverages in every office

About Spire:

We improve life on Earth with data from space. Spire Global is a space-to-cloud analytics company that owns and operates the largest multi-purpose constellation of satellites. Its proprietary data and algorithms provide the most advanced maritime, aviation, and weather tracking in the world. In addition to its constellation, Spire’s data infrastructure includes a global ground station network and 24/7 operations that provide real-time global coverage of every point on Earth. Spire is Global and our success draws upon the diverse viewpoints, skills and experiences of our employees. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or veteran status.