Software Engineer - USA | Remote
About the Company
Planet is a global space and data company focused on using space-based technology to help life on Earth. Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites in history, delivering cloud-based datasets to customers and users across commercial, environmental, research, and humanitarian sectors. Planet brings together expertise across satellite hardware, manufacturing, data processing, and software engineering. The company supports a global workforce, with employees working remotely and from offices in San Francisco, Washington, DC, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and the Netherlands.
About the Role
Planet is seeking a Software Engineer, Platform Operations to help design, build, and operate the core infrastructure that enables engineering teams to reliably deploy and scale their services. This role focuses on Platform Engineering, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), security, scalability, reliability, and developer experience. The successful candidate will collaborate with software engineers across the organization to improve deployment and operational workflows and help provide an effective internal developer platform. This is a full-time remote position based in the United States. Employees located near a Planet office are expected to work from that office three days per week.
Key Responsibilities
- Design and implement secure and scalable Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) solutions.
- Contribute to major platform modernization initiatives, including migration from legacy tooling to new solutions.
- Manage cloud-based infrastructure services, including Kubernetes clusters and associated platform tooling.
- Support infrastructure that meets internal requirements and customer-facing service-level agreements.
- Improve observability for key platform services using Grafana and other relevant tools.
- Establish and improve Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and operational readiness.
- Implement improvements and features for core platform systems, including GKE clusters, public API gateways, and other managed infrastructure solutions.
- Collaborate with software engineering teams to improve the developer experience (DevEx) of managed infrastructure.
- Troubleshoot complex production environments using a strong operational mindset.
- Build and maintain cloud-based services and infrastructure tooling.
Required Qualifications
- 4+ years of experience in Platform Engineering, System Administration, DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).
- Deep understanding of Kubernetes, Linux, and underlying compute systems.
- Working knowledge of public cloud platforms, particularly Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or Amazon Web Services (AWS).
- Experience with CI/CD tools, such as GitLab or ArgoCD.
- Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration management, such as Terraform or Crossplane.
- Understanding of GitOps principles.
- Strong troubleshooting skills and an operational mindset for complex production environments.
- Experience building services using Go and/or Python.
- Experience with Git, Docker, and CI/CD workflows.
- Experience building services that leverage cloud-based infrastructure and tooling.
- Ability to clearly communicate technical designs and decisions both verbally and in writing.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience operating and developing core platform systems.
- Experience contributing to open-source infrastructure projects.
- Experience maintaining highly available or operationally resilient infrastructure at very large scales.
- Experience working with infrastructure across multiple clouds.
- Practical experience with networking and network architectures related to platform infrastructure.
- Experience with observability tools and industry best practices.
Skills & Competencies
- Platform Engineering
- DevOps
- Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
- Kubernetes
- Linux
- Cloud Infrastructure
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC)
- Terraform
- Crossplane
- GitOps
- CI/CD
- GitLab
- ArgoCD
- Docker
- Git
- Go
- Python
- GKE
- Grafana and observability
- Production troubleshooting
- Infrastructure security, scalability, and reliability
- Developer Experience (DevEx)
- Technical communication and collaboration
Education & Experience
Education: No specific education or degree requirement is stated in the original job description.
Experience:
- 4+ years of experience in Platform Engineering, System Administration, DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).
- Relevant experience with Kubernetes, Linux, public cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, IaC, GitOps, and cloud-based services as outlined above.
Work Arrangement & Schedule
- Work Type: Remote
- Employment Type: Full-time
- Location: United States
- Office Requirement: Employees located near a Planet office are expected to work from that office 3 days per week.
Compensation & Benefits
The US base salary range for this full-time position in New York City and California is $136,000–$170,000 USD. The position may also be eligible for discretionary short-term and long-term incentives, including bonus and equity. Final compensation is determined based on job-related experience, skills, and location.
Benefits include:
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
- Health Savings Account (HSA) with company contribution
- Generous paid time off, 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 for employees local to an office
- Paid volunteering time off