Principal SW Engineer, Machine Learning Operations

Principal Software Engineer, Machine Learning Operations

About Us:

BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company. We own and operate the world's most advanced space-based intelligence platform and provide customers satellite imagery, automated analytics and high-frequency monitoring of strategic locations, economic assets and events from around the globe. BlackSky is trusted by the most demanding allied military and intelligence organizations and commercial companies to deliver foresight into critical matters that affect national security and the economy. BlackSky's data enables governments and businesses to see, understand and anticipate change as it happens, giving them the ultimate strategic advantage so they can act quickly. Our global team works with cutting-edge technology to make a difference around the world and prides itself on being people-first, customer-focused and fun.

BlackSky is looking for a talented and creative Principal Software Engineer to support the development, operation, and capability evolution of Spectra AI, BlackSky's cutting-edge AI/ML Platform. As part of the machine learning team, you are instrumental in supporting the automated monitoring mission at BlackSky. You will help ensure that Spectra AI produces consistent, reliable, and relevant analytics to BlackSky's growing user base.

This position is a critical element of the BlackSky AI/ML Engineering team and is expected to work collaboratively with internal satellite development teams to ensure success. The ideal candidate has geospatial software engineering, computer vision model deployment, operations, and testing experience; familiarity with satellite imagery or similar datasets; and success working in an agile development environment. Additionally, the ideal candidate has demonstrated the ability to manage their own efforts over a broad scope of work as an independent contributor. Finally, the candidate should be an independent thinker with the demonstrated ability and willingness to lean in to learn new tools, technologies, and approaches to solve new problems. This role reports to the Manager, Machine Learning Operations.

While the locations listed in the job posting are accepted, we would love candidates near either our Herndon, VA or Seattle, WA offices. We may also consider remote candidates in certain states.

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.

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum of ten years of hands-on experience as a software engineer with at least four years focused on geospatial imagery.
• Bachelor's/Master's 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.
• You may have some exposure to machine learning. While not a requirement, it would be helpful if you have studied or have worked with machine learning, statistics, computer vision and would enjoy working with Computer Vision subject matter experts.
• The program this role will support requires Us-born citizenship.

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.).

Life at BlackSky for full-time US benefits eligible employees includes:

• 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

The anticipated base salary range for candidates in Seattle, WA is $175,000-200,000 per year. The final compensation package offered to a successful candidate will be dependent on specific background and education. BlackSky is a multi-state employer, and 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 conform to 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 the required 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