Staff Applied AI Engineer

Welcome to Planet. We believe in using space to help life on Earth.

Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites in history. This constellation delivers an unprecedented dataset of empirical information via a revolutionary cloud-based platform to authoritative figures in commercial, environmental, and humanitarian sectors. We are both a space company and data company all rolled into one.

Customers and users across the globe use Planet's data to develop new technologies, drive revenue, power research, and solve our world’s toughest obstacles.

As we control every component of hardware design, manufacturing, data processing, and software engineering, our office is a truly inspiring mix of experts from a variety of domains.

We have a people-centric approach toward culture and community and we strive to iterate in a way that puts our team members first and prepares our company for growth. Join Planet and be a part of our mission to change the way people see the world.

Planet is a global company with employees working remotely world wide and joining us from offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and The Netherlands.

About the Role:

We are seeking a talented Staff Artificial Intelligence (AI) engineer to join our AI Research team and contribute to our vision of creating a “Queryable Earth”. In this role, you will work with cutting-edge vision-language models (VLMs) and contrastive vision-language embedding models to extract valuable insights from our extensive archive of geospatial imagery. This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to accelerate the shift in how geospatial data is consumed by end users. You will work with highly skilled Planeteers working on multi-disciplinary fields  including satellites, space operations, image processing, data pipeline and analytics teams and work to co-develop AI/ML solutions for Planet’s geospatial imagery. Join us in revolutionizing how we understand and interact with our Planetary Dataset through the power of AI. 

This is a full-time, remote role, with a requirement to travel to San Francisco, HQ once a month. 

Impact You'll Own:

• Develop and optimize multimodal LLM applications
• Build embedding & similarity search pipelines at planetary scale—batch over xarray/Zarr cubes, index with BigQuery or PostGIS, etc.
• Fine‑tune multimodal foundation models (e.g. CLIP-like models, MAEs, ViTs) for Earth‑observation tasks: change detection, land‑cover, semantic search, object counting
• Design and execute machine learning workflows for geospatial analysis
• Define success criteria and model benchmarks, adding instrumentation and model versioning where appropriate
• Co‑design tool schemas & guardrails with backend engineers so LLM‑generated JSON plans execute safely
• Collaborate with research scientists and engineers to design innovative models for remote sensing applications
• Assist in automating the preprocessing and labeling geospatial data for AI tasks
• Evaluate and improve algorithms for feature detection and classification in satellite imagery
• Publish findings internally & externally (e.g. IGARSS, CVPR, etc.)

What You Bring:

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Remote Sensing, or similar 
• 12+ years expertise (or demonstrably equivalent) in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Remote Sensing, or a related field
• Experience with remote sensing, satellite image analysis, and geospatial data
• Experience with rapid prototyping of AI Applications, especially search, LLMs, and agents, e.g. Google ADK, Model Context Protocol, CrewAI, Langchain, etc.
• Extensive experience in developing and deploying AI/ML models, with a focus on geospatial applications and foundation models, embeddings, and frontier VLLMs
• Excellent understanding of generative AI techniques, including LLMs and embeddings.
• Proficient in Python and deep learning frameworks and high-performance distributed computing and IO frameworks using the python ecosystem, e.g. xarrays, dask, numpy, BigQuery, etc. 
• Expertise with computer vision and natural language processing techniques and familiarity with joint multimodal embeddings generators like CLIP and its more recent variants, as well as the operation and use of MMVLMs (multi-model vision-language models)
• ​​Familiarity with multi-dimensional geometry, statistics, linear algebra, optimization, and the internals of standard deep learning architectures
• Fluency in full stack-development development and effective GUI implementation for web applications which rely on back-end scientific and AI systems
• Knowledge of geospatial data formats and analysis tools (e.g., GDAL, GeoPandas, Rasterio)
• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to work in a dynamic research environment
• Experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and big data workflows 
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills

What Makes You Stand Out:

• Product and/or business development experience
• Experience with distributed computing (Docker/K8s, Dask, Ray Serve)

#LI-REMOTE

Application Deadline:

December 24, 2025 at 11:59pm PT

EAR/ITAR Requirements:

This position requires access to export-controlled information, and as such, employment (or hiring of a contractor) is contingent upon the candidate’s ability to access all applicable export-controlled information without additional export licensing being required by the Bureau of Industry and Security and/or the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls.

Benefits While Working at Planet:

These offerings are dependent on employment type and geographical location, based upon applicable law or company policy.

• Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision plans
• Health Savings Account (HSA) with a company contribution
• Generous Paid Time Off in addition to 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 (if local to an office)
• Volunteering Paid Time Off

Compensation:

The US base salary range for this full-time position at the commencement of employment is listed below.  Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary short-term and long-term incentives (bonus and equity). The final salary range is determined by job related experience, skills and location.  The range displays our typical hiring range for new hire salaries in US locations only.  Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

Why we care so much about Belonging. 
We’re dedicated to helping the whole Planet, and to do that we must strive to represent all of it within each of our offices and on all of our teams. That’s why Planet is guided by an ultimate north star of Belonging—dreaming big as we approach our ongoing work.  If this job intrigues you, but you’re thinking you might not have all the qualifications, please... do apply!  At Planet, we are looking for well-rounded people from around the world who can contribute to more ways than just what is listed in this job description.  We don’t just fill positions, we aspire to fulfill people’s careers, most excited about folks who are motivated by our underlying humanitarian efforts.  We are a few orbits around the sun before we get to where we want to be, so we hope you’re excited to come along for the ride. 

EEO statement:
Planet is committed to building a community where everyone belongs and we invite people from all backgrounds to apply. Planet is an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Know Your Rights.

Accommodations: 
Planet is an inclusive community and we know that everyone has their own needs. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the hiring process, please reach out to accommodations@planet.com or contact your recruiter with your request. Your message will be confidential and we will be happy to assist you.

Privacy Policy: By clicking "Apply Now" at the top of this job posting, I acknowledge that I have read the Planet Data Privacy Notice for California Staff Members and Applicants, and hereby consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of my personal information as described therein.

Privacy Policy (European Applicants): By clicking "Apply Now" at the top of this job posting, I acknowledge that I have read the Candidate Privacy Notice GDPR Planet Labs Europe, and hereby consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of my personal information as described therein.

AI in Our Interviewing Process: Planet is committed to providing an exceptional interview experience for all candidates. We are currently exploring AI interviewing technologies to better focus on candidates and less on trying to capture notes. As such, with the candidate's consent, select interviews may be recorded and include a Planet AI Notetaker for transcription and summarization purposes. Should an interview involve use of AI interview technologies, the candidate will receive notification and have the ability to opt out both in advance and/or real-time. Opting out will not affect one's candidacy.

Candidate AI Policy: Planet embraces Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, and we encourage its responsible use. We understand that candidates may use various resources, including AI tools, to prepare for interviews and assessments. However, during any live interview stage or when actively completing assessments for this position, the use of AI tools—e.g. Large Language Models (LLMs), deep fake technology, etc.—is strictly prohibited unless explicitly prompted by an interviewer or assessment instructions. If you are unsure about acceptable use, please contact your recruiter for clarification. If an AI tool or similar technology is desired as an accommodation, please contact accommodations@planet.com with your request for assistance. Your message will be confidential, and we will be happy to assist you. Violation of this policy may result in disqualification of your application.