Software Engineering Manager, Area Monitoring & LPIS

About the role

The Solution Enablement pillar is seeking an experienced Software Engineering Manager to lead a team of eight engineers dedicated to Planet's Area Monitoring Service (AMS) and Land Parcel Identification Systems (LPIS) portfolios. Both areas are rooted in Planet's Area Monitoring Service (AMS) for the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - a flagship Planet solution where satellite imagery and geospatial data help national paying agencies verify agricultural compliance at scale. In this role, you will provide strategic leadership to ensure the successful execution of both focus areas, while fostering professional development within your team. You will partner with Technical Leads and cross-functional teams to drive operational excellence, manage dependencies, and ensure strategic alignment across government engagements. Ideal candidates are strategic leaders who can enable a team to build scalable, reusable components while navigating complex, multi-stakeholder delivery environments. This is a full-time, hybrid role which will require you to work from our Ljubljana office 3 days per week. Impact You'll Own: Lead a team of eight software engineers spanning two focus areas, providing unified leadership while enabling each area to deliver on its distinct commitments. Own the overall planning, execution, and success of multi-stakeholder delivery engagements across government contracts and pilots. Partner with Technical Leads to ensure sound technical direction, effective sprint execution, and well-maintained Objectives and Key Results (OKR) roadmaps by reviewing for bandwidth and priority alignment rather than driving technical decisions directly. Represent the team in cross-functional interactions by vetting product requirements with Product Managers, aligning priorities across the organisation, managing dependencies with other engineering leads and the Global Professional Services and Sales (GPSS) team, and supporting sales discussions where domain expertise adds value. Develop team members through regular performance feedback, mentoring, and coaching, fostering an environment where engineers grow in both technical depth and professional impact. Coordinate resource allocation and manages shifting priorities across contracts and focus areas, enabling the team to surge toward high-priority work without requiring organisational restructuring. Drive operational excellence across the team's services and deliverables by establishing clear accountability, monitoring delivery health, and improving how the team works. What You Bring: 4+ years of industry experience in software engineering, and 2+ years of experience managing software engineering teams. Success leading teams of 6+ engineers, ideally across multiple workstreams or product areas. Experience managing delivery in a customer-facing or professional-services context, including navigating competing stakeholder priorities and contractual commitments. Experience partnering with Technical Leads, empowering them to own technical direction while maintaining strategic oversight and priority alignment. Ability to communicate technical and strategic topics in English, written and oral, including representing engineering in cross-functional and customer-facing settings. Experience working in cross-functional teams that put customer requirements first. Track record of developing engineers at various career stages - from junior to senior - through coaching, feedback, and growth-oriented management. Ability to be adaptable and open to changes and challenges in a dynamic, evolving organisation. What Makes You Stand Out: Experience with geospatial technologies, remote sensing, or earth observation. Familiarity with the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),

Benefits

Additional Information

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.

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