Principal Software Engineer, Machine Learning Operations

BlackSky
Summary
Join BlackSky, a real-time intelligence company, as a Principal Software Engineer to contribute to the development and operation of Spectra AI, our cutting-edge AI/ML platform. You will play a key role in ensuring consistent and reliable analytics for our growing user base, collaborating with internal teams and acting as a technical leader. This critical role involves designing and implementing image processing pipelines, ensuring high-quality code, and participating in the entire project lifecycle. You will lead MLOps projects, architect the machine learning operations platform, and develop processes to improve research velocity. The position requires strong software engineering experience, particularly with geospatial imagery and machine learning, and excellent communication skills. BlackSky offers a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, paid time off, 401k matching, and professional development opportunities.
Requirements
- Minimum of ten years of hands-on experience as a software engineer with at least four years focused on geospatial imagery
- Bachelorโs/Masterโs Degree or higher in one of the following fields: computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, or another computational field
- Demonstrated experience designing and building scalable production software solutions and architectures, especially for machine learning or image processing
- Strong Python or Golang proficiency and experience writing production software for data ETL, micro-services, geospatial, or data analytics, and cloud deployment
- Experience with distributed compute environments such as Kubernetes and Dask
- Hands on experience working with large imagery datasets including image normalization, image augmentation, raster/vector visualization, etc
- Strong ability to communicate concepts and software system results with customers, management, and the technical team, highlighting actionable insights
- Hands on experience with cloud services such as AWS EKS, S3, EC2, Aurora / RDS, SQS, SNS, Batch, etc
- The program this role will support requires Us-born citizenship
Responsibilities
- Design and implement image processing pipelines and software services to assist researchers developing computer vision solutions for next-generation satellite imagery analytics
- Ensure high-quality and production-ready Python and GO code
- Take part in the entire project lifecycle from requirements development to deployment
- Serve as a lead on MLOps software development projects, data ETL projects, and software feature development
- Collaborate with management and technical team on technical roadmap and implementation strategy
- Own and architect the vision, strategy, and technical roadmap for BlackSky's machine learning operations platform, ensuring it can scale to support a growing portfolio of advanced AI products
- Design, build, and operate a robust and automated infrastructure for the entire ML lifecycle, including labeling, ETL, training, deployment, and monitoring
- Develop and manage processes and tools to improve the velocity of researchers developing next-generation AI for processing satellite imagery and multimodal data
- Act as a key technical leader, partnering with stakeholders across teams (e.g., computer vision, data, platform) to streamline the path to production and accelerate AI product development timelines
- Clearly and effectively communicate technical strategy, opportunities, risks, and progress to senior leadership and key stakeholders across the company
- Mentor and guide other engineers on the team, leveraging your experience to teach others and foster a culture of technical excellence and innovation
- Other job-related duties as assigned
Preferred Qualifications
- Over 12 years of hands-on experience as a software engineer
- Knowledge and experience with MLOps and DataOps as a practice
- Experience with databases and data model design especially SQL such as Postgres / PostGIS and ElasticSearch
- 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, BlackSky, Airbus, Planet, or WorldView
- Experience with Infrastructure solutions including (scaling and deploying models in the cloud using AWS solutions such as Kubernetes, ClearML, Nvidia Triton, Kubeflow, Torch Serve, Argo, etc.)
Benefits
- Medical, dental, vision, disability, group term life and AD&D, voluntary life and AD&D insurance
- 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 Stock Purchase Program
- Employee Assistance and Travel Assistance Programs
- Employer matching donations
- Professional development
- Mac or PC? Your choice!
- Awesome swag