Senior Director of Engineering - Civil Government and Commercial

Description

The company designs, builds and runs the largest imaging satellite constellation in history, and sells its data through a cloud platform to government, environmental and humanitarian organisations.

Customers worldwide use the data to build new technologies, grow revenue, support research and tackle hard problems.

The company controls hardware, manufacturing, data processing and software itself, so teams mix experts from many fields.

Staff work remotely around the world and from offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and the Netherlands.

This role leads engineering for Civil Government and Commercial, covering more than 70 engineers across several countries and time zones.

Current products include AMS for EU CAP compliance, Disaster and Wildfire solutions, Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (CDSE) and a set of derived data products.

You will also lead zero to one discovery of new products with Product Management, Design and Science, built on high-frequency imagery and derived data.

AI is central to how the company builds, so you will make it the main way your teams find, build and ship for customers.

The role is important for bringing new applications to civil governments and commercial customers worldwide.

Your team's work supports the company's aim of helping life on Earth by letting governments and businesses act on timely information.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor and grow a global engineering group of 70+ engineers, managers and directors across geographies and time zones.
• Set high performance standards: define measurable outcomes for each product and team, raise risks early and openly, and make tough calls on people and priorities when results fall short.
• Run daily engineering delivery for AMS, Disaster and Wildfire solutions and the derived data portfolio, keeping them reliable and fast.
• Lead zero to one discovery by building the technical base and prototypes for new commercial and civil government products.
• Work every day with Product Management, Design and GTM to set product direction, rank features and tie technical plans to business goals.
• Make sure systems are scalable, reliable and secure for government and enterprise use, guiding architecture and engineering practice.

Requirements

• 10+ years of relevant software engineering experience, with 8+ years leading and managing several layers of engineering management.
• Experience leading and scaling distributed engineering teams of 50+ people across locations and time zones.
• Use AI tools in your own work and have led engineering teams through AI adoption.
• Track record taking new software from technical discovery and architecture through to successful launch.
• Background building geospatial platforms, data analytics solutions or enterprise SaaS products.
• Experience delivering tailored solutions for individual customers that meet or beat their expectations, and feeding reusable building blocks back into shared solutions.
• Growth mindset: you experiment, learn fast and change course when the evidence says so.
• Turn complex business and user needs into technical roadmaps with cross-functional partners.
• Oversee operational reliability, cloud infrastructure and deployment lifecycles for enterprise-grade applications.
• Drive software delivery metrics, maintain high availability and SLAs, and enforce rigorous engineering practice.
• Recruit, mentor and retain engineers at all levels while building an inclusive team culture.
• Communicate clearly in writing and speech with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Standing out: success building large civil government solutions using forward deployed engineering.
• Standing out: familiarity with regulatory, compliance and security requirements for government technology worldwide.
• Standing out: experience building sovereign systems for governments.

Conditions

Full-time hybrid role: work from the Berlin, Haarlem or Ljubljana office 3 days per week.

Expected starting gross salary for Germany is €123.300 - €154.100 EUR.

Exact placement within that range is set by objective, gender-neutral factors such as skills, qualifications and professional experience.

The role may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses and/or equity.

Under the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered.

Applicants who do not meet every listed qualification are still encouraged to apply.

Applications close at 23:45 CET on the date stated below, are reviewed on a rolling basis, and the posting may be removed early once a suitable pool is received.

Benefits

• Benefits depend on employment type and location, based on applicable law or company policy.
• Paid vacation, holidays and company-wide days off.
• Employee wellness program.
• Home office reimbursement.
• Monthly phone and internet reimbursement.
• Tuition reimbursement and access to LinkedIn Learning.
• Equity.
• Paid volunteering time off.