Senior Space Systems Engineer, Mission Optimization

The Mission Optimization team is responsible for continuously improving the operations and productivity of the world's largest Earth observation satellite constellation. We identify, triage, and resolve the bottlenecks that limit what our fleets can deliver – from contact scheduling and downlink latency, to collection capacity, to concepts of operation for our future missions.

As a Senior Space Systems Engineer on this team you will own the definition of novel concepts of operations. You will take problems that begin as a customer commitment, a contractual obligation, or an unexploited spacecraft capability, and turn them into an operational concept that engineering teams can build and operators can run.

You will operate with substantial latitude, working closely with spacecraft and systems engineering groups to understand what current and future fleets are capable of, with the software and operations teams who build and run the systems you're changing, and with Product and customer-facing teams to stay anchored to commitments and SLA risk. Being effective across those boundaries is a core part of this job.

• Define and own concepts of operations for new missions, new spacecraft capabilities, and new customer products, from early design through nominal operations
• Lead optimization initiatives that span multiple organizations – setting the technical direction, building agreement, and holding the outcome against fleet SLAs and KPIs
• Serve as a primary technical interface for the team with stakeholders across engineering, operations, and product
• Translate contractual and customer obligations into operational concepts and capacity commitments the fleet can actually meet
• Model and analyze fleet performance with operational data to identify where capacity, latency, or agility are being left on the table
• Design, develop, and maintain the software solutions that implement these concepts
• Act as a recognized subject-matter expert across Planet and provide technical mentorship within the team

• 10+ years of relevant experience in spacecraft operations, mission systems engineering, or a closely related field
• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field
• Ownership of concepts of operations for complex operational systems, from definition to implementation
• Working proficiency in Python or a comparable language, ability to model systems, analyze operational data, and contribute production code
• Quantitative approach, including statistical analysis and reasoning over large operational datasets
• A track record of leading technical initiatives across organizational boundaries
• Ability to communicate and negotiate technical positions with senior stakeholders
• Experience mentoring or technically leading other engineers
• Experience operating or designing operations for a large-scale satellite constellation
• Background in optimization, scheduling, or operations research
• Experience taking a new mission from design through commissioning and nominal operations
• Familiarity with commercial Earth Observation, tasking, or fulfillment systems
• Experience in a customer- or partner-facing technical role
• Familiarity with orbital mechanics, link budgets, and spacecraft resource modeling
• Experience with DevOps tooling and practices (Git, GitLab, Docker, CI/CD, Linux, Sentry, Datadog)

• Paid time off including vacation, holidays and company-wide days off
• Employee Wellness Program
• Home Office Reimbursement
• Monthly Phone and Internet Reimbursement
• Tuition Reimbursement and access to LinkedIn Learning
• Equity
• Volunteering Paid Time Off