Software Engineer, Platform Operations

Planet designs, builds, and operates a large constellation of imaging satellites and delivers its data through a cloud-based platform. The Software Engineer, Platform Operations will design, build, and operate core cloud-native infrastructure, including Infrastructure-as-Code solutions, Kubernetes clusters, observability systems, and managed platform services. The role also partners with software engineering teams to improve deployment reliability and the internal developer experience.

Responsibilities:

• Design and implement core Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) solutions to ensure the secure and scalable operation of Planet's services
• Actively work on major platform modernization initiatives, including the full migration from legacy tooling to new solutions
• Manage cloud-based infrastructure services, notably our fleet of Kubernetes clusters, and associated tooling to meet internal needs and support customer-facing service level agreements
• Enhance and maintain observability for key platform services, leveraging Grafana and other tools to establish Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and improve operational readiness
• Implement improvements and features for core systems owned by the team, such as GKE clusters, public API gateway, and other managed infrastructure solutions
• Collaborate with software engineering teams to refine the developer experience (DevEx) of our managed infrastructure

Requirements:

• This is a full-time, remote position based in the United States. If located near an office, you are expected to work from that office 3 days per week
• 4+ years of experience in a Platform Engineering, System Administration, DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) role
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes, underlying compute systems, and Linux
• Working knowledge of public clouds, particularly Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Experience with CI/CD tools (e.g. GitLab, ArgoCD), Configuration Management (e.g. Terraform, Crossplane) and GitOps principles
• Ability to use an operational mindset and troubleshooting prowess for complex production environments
• Experience building services in languages such as Go and Python using tools like Git, Docker, and CI/CD workflows
• Experience building services that leverage cloud-based infrastructure and tooling such as AWS or GCP
• Ability to collaborate and clearly communicate designs and decisions verbally and in writing
• Experience in the operational management and development of core platform systems or open-source infrastructure projects
• Experience with maintaining highly available or operationally resilient infrastructure at very large scales or across multiple clouds
• Practical experience with networking and network architectures as it relates to platform infrastructure
• Experience with Observability tools and best practices