Pros
I've worked in the industry for around 10 years, mostly at progressive large to very large tech companies (Facebook, Google, etc). I decided to try out life in small to medium sized startups, and by comparison it was terrible. Chaotic, low quality engineering, difficult peers, and cliques controlling everything. I had just about written off smaller companies until I started working for Planet. At Planet I'm proud of the work my team does. We hold ourselves to a high engineering standard, and I feel like everyone's opinions matter. I see strong management, and strong leadership from senior engineers. I'm glad of this because I feel we're doing important work. There's pressure to deliver, but the quality of my peers assures me we will. Like most startups Planet is driving hard toward profitability, but I am convinced the company has a more humanitarian bent than most. From the executive level down it's obvious that many people work here because they care about monitoring the planet's health.
Cons
Software engineering at Planet is aligned into a handful of 'verticals' (i.e. mission control, onboard software, image pipeline, customer solutions, analytics). It sometimes feels like these verticals could be better aligned - sometimes two verticals will be working on essentially the same thing without much communication between the two. Planet feels driven by its sales organisation. That makes sense right now, butthe relationship between sales, product, program management, and engineering is hard to follow. As regular old engineer I feel a little too removed from the sales and even product orgs. Planet is driving hard toward profitability, and that means frugality. I'm pleased with my compensation package, but they lean toward 'no frills' in other areas (corporate travel, tech equipment, etc).