Staff Software Engineer (Data Engineering)

Staff Software Engineer (Data Engineering) About Us: BlackSky is a provider of geospatial intelligence solutions that empower organizations to task, collect, and transform data from earth observation, global sensor networks, mobile devices, and social media in order to provide on-demand insights about places, events, and assets that are crucial to their operations. BlackSky offers satellite collection, data, and cloud-based processing and analytic solutions to organizations that are capitalizing on the exponential growth of numerous sensor and collection platforms, in order to provide the next generation of GEOINT and location intelligence solutions. BlackSky possesses extensive expertise and capabilities in commercial remote sensing, multi-source analytics, cloud computing, open-source software development, Amazon Web Services, and big data geospatial analytics. BlackSky delivers solutions to both commercial and government organizations with relevant partnerships with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Air Force Research Labs. BlackSky is seeking a skilled and innovative Staff Software Engineer to aid in the development, operation, and evolution of Spectra AI, BlackSky's state-of-the-art AI/ML Platform. As a member of the machine learning team, you will play a crucial role in supporting BlackSky's automated monitoring mission, helping to ensure that Spectra AI consistently provides reliable and relevant analytics to BlackSky's expanding user base. This role is a vital component of the BlackSky AI/ML Engineering team and is expected to work collaboratively with internal satellite development teams to guarantee success. The ideal candidate has experience in geospatial software engineering, computer vision model deployment, operations, and testing, familiarity with satellite imagery or similar datasets, and a successful track record in an agile development environment. Furthermore, the ideal candidate should be able to independently manage their work across a wide range of tasks and should be a flexible thinker, demonstrating a willingness and ability to learn new tools, technologies, and approaches to problem-solving. While preference will be given to local candidates within the Herndon, VA area, we are open to candidates in certain remote states. This role will report to the Manager of Machine Learning Operations. Responsibilities include: - Taking project and system-level requirements into account and defining architectures and solutions in relation to our Computer Vision Training, Inference, and Annotation Pipelines; - Decomposing software solutions and designs into separate tasks following an agile software development lifecycle, which may include instructing junior engineers; - Implementing high-quality and production-ready software designs whilst adhering to team coding standards and software best practices; - Participating in the entire project lifecycle from requirements development to deployment; - Collaborating with project stakeholders and the management team to iterate and improve product functionality and strategy; - Building geospatial tools and scripts to provide valuable insights to the team and enhance overall productivity; - Assisting in managing and curating the various types of data needed to train high quality computer vision models; - Driving toward reducing overall latency in real-time processes, from identifying problem areas to implementing improvements; - Performing other job-related tasks as required. Eligible applicants must possess: - A minimum of 10 years of hands-on experience as a software engineer, with at least three years specializing in geospatial imagery; - A Bachelor's or Master's Degree or higher in computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, or another computational field; - Proven experience in designing and constructing scalable production software solutions and architectures, especially for machine learning or image processing; - Proficiency in Python3 and experience in writing production software for data ETL, microservices, business intelligence, and cloud deployment; - Experience with distributed compute environments such as Kubernetes and Dask; - Hands-on experience in working with large imagery datasets including image normalization, image augmentation, raster/vector visualization, etc.; - Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain concepts and analytical results to customers, management, and the technical team; - Eligibility for a US security clearance, which requires US citizenship; - Some exposure to machine learning may be advantageous, especially if the candidate has studied machine learning, statistics, computer vision and enjoys working with Computer Vision subject matter experts. Preferred qualifications include: - Over 12 years of hands-on experience as a software engineer; - Knowledge and experience with MLOps and DataOps as practices; - Experience working with geospatial and image software stacks (GDAL, Rasterio, GeoPandas, Shapely, Xarray, Zarr, etc.); - Experience with remote sensing datasets and image preprocessing and manipulation methods for sensors such as Sentinel, LandSat, WorldView; - Experience with Infrastructure solutions including (scaling and deploying models in the cloud using AWS solutions such as Kubernetes, ClearML, Argo, Airflow, Dask, EC2, S3, Batch). Benefits at BlackSky for full-time employees include: - Medical, dental, vision, disability, group term life and AD&D, voluntary life and AD&D insurances. BlackSky pays 100% of employee-only premiums for medical, dental and vision and contributes $100/month for out-of-pocket expenses; - 15 days of PTO, 11 Company holidays, four Floating Holidays (pro-rated based on hire date), one day of paid volunteerism leave per year, parental leave and more; - 401(k) pre-tax and Roth deferral options with employer match; - Flexible Spending Accounts; - Employee Assistance and Travel Assistance Programs; - Employer matching donations; - Professional development; - Your choice of Mac or PC; - Awesome company swag. The expected salary range for candidates in Seattle, WA is $150,000-175,000 per year. Final compensation for a successful candidate will be determined by specific background and education. BlackSky operates in multiple states, thus this pay scale may not reflect salary ranges in other states or locations outside of Seattle, WA. BlackSky is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. To comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain necessary authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. EEO/AAP/ Pay Transparency Statements: https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/OFCCP_EEO_Supplement_Final_JRF_QA_508c.pdf