Director of Software Engineering
Technical Leadership
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
Team Building & Culture
Recruit, develop, and retain a team of 6 to 10 world-class reliability and platform engineers
Set the pace, tone, and ambition for the team and make being on it feel like a privilege
Create an environment where engineers grow fast, own their work, and ship things they are proud of
Identify gaps and level up engineers through mentorship and not just management
Operational Transformation
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
Cross-Functional Influence
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
Basic 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. You have owned things that could not go down.
- Deep technical credibility. Engineers on your teams have respected your judgment and not just your title.
- Experience with SRE principles, reliability engineering, or large-scale automation. You have reduced toil systematically and not just complained about it.
- Strong foundation in Python, distributed systems, data platforms, and cloud infrastructure
- Experience hiring and developing engineers. You know what great looks like and how to find it.
- The communication and influence skills to drive technical decisions across teams you do not directly control
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience applying AI/ML or advanced analytics to operational or monitoring problems
- Experience writing performance software in Rust
- Background in space systems, aerospace, or highly constrained real-time environments
- Experience building data lakes, telemetry platforms, or observability infrastructure at scale
- A history of leading teams through technical transformations and not just maintaining the status quo
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.
Global Perks
- Name Your Satellite Program (NYSP)
- 🚀 Launch Attendance
- 🌴 Generous Time Off Policy
- 🎓 Education Assistance Program
- 🥰 Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- 📈 Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
- 👣 Family Leave
- 💪 Fitness Reimbursement
- 🧡 Employee Referral Program
- 🍉 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.