Director of Product, Machine Learning/ AI

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 headquartered in San Francisco, California, Earth.

About the Role:  

Planet is looking for an exceptional Director of Product with a proven background in hiring, mentoring, and leading high functioning product management teams.

As Director of Product, ML/AI, you lead the product management team responsible for Planet’s innovation in ML/AI to extract “Planetary Variables” that underpin Planet’s growth strategy. You will cultivate Planet’s ML product strategy and ensure your team properly engages internal and external stakeholders and builds wildly successful, customer-centric products. You're equally at home communicating strategy to executives as you are discussing the technical trade-offs across product managers and your engineering counterpart.

You will be primarily responsible for driving the overarching strategy and execution for the ML products that are core to Planet’s growth beyond traditional satellite imagery markets. Your team will manage Planet’s products related to segmentation and object extraction on imagery and other remotely sensed data sets. Beyond these “first order” variables, you will guide the strategy for deeper, more valuable insights into our changing Planet. This role is deeply cross-functional, and building positive relationships across Product, Software Engineering, Space Systems and Sales will be crucial to your success.

Impact You’ll Own:

• Lead Planet’s overall product strategy related to ML/AI derived products
• Leverage Planet’s unprecedented archive of over 1800 images over every point on earth to build world class data products
• Drive customer-centric culture throughout product lifecycle
• Build out a world class, customer centric product team that leads Planet’s expansion into new vertical markets
• Ensure consistent execution of product lifecycle process from concept to launch through management of people and projects.
• Set project priorities and work through team leads to advance projects from development through implementation

What You Bring:

• 5+ years in a Product leadership role with demonstrated success developing ML-based products
• A history of delivering sophisticated products with a solid understanding of machine learning and neural networks
• Ability to coordinate people and technical resources across multiple areas of the company
• A proven track record of hiring, mentoring, and leading high functioning product management teams
• A strong quantitative skill-set with a dedication to rigorous data driven decision-making
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated experience in building successful cross-functional partnerships and successfully navigating complex stakeholder environments
• A strong growth-mindset and a servant-leadership approach
• Highly tuned emotional-intelligence and deep seated empathy for both engineering teams and customers
• Ability to think strategically and craft a compelling product vision
• Outstanding planning, collaboration, and organizational skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills at the technical level
• Must be energetic, creative, and self-motivated
• Bachelor's or master's in computer science, GIS, Geography, Remote Sensing or related field

Some Press About Us: 

Our CEO, Will Marshall featured on TED and featured in a Planet Blog

“Planet: Bringing Space Back Down to Earth”

Tiny, privately owned satellites are changing how we view the Earth features in NBC News

“Planet And Rocket Lab Create Mission Patch To Honor Women In Aerospace” —Planet Blog

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 with diversity, equity and inclusion.  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.