Pros
EO and GIS are high-potential and fascinating. The company reflects that and is full of interesting, smart, and friendly people. It’s great to be around, if you are lucky enough that your role has you in proximity to the good ones. There are talented people across satellite building, data processing, customer service, marketing, etc. There are hard problems to solve and plenty to learn. Pay was decent with fairly good medical benefits, but no 401(k) match or good coverage for therapy. Offices are managed well and those onsite receive nice perks like provided lunches and massages, depending on location.
Cons
Zero career growth. Career ladders are meaningless if they exist for your function at all. Performance reviews are also meaningless; clear favor was shown by management, regardless of impact or peer feedback. I worked myself to the bone, carried the work of multiple people, and delivered. It never mattered. Middle managers are not empowered with information, company insight, or budget – just meaningless tips from an overburdened HR – which then makes it hard to empower teams. There are revolving doors down entire reporting chains. I met multiple colleagues who were demoted without cause to lower salary bands after joining, making raises impossible due to compensation caps and providing excuses to cut them out of leadership meetings. Roles would get let go and immediately rehired. In decades of employment, I have never seen such a lack of seriousness or respect for hired professionals. There is no mystery why morale is so low, and even after a 20% staff reduction within 12mo, people are quitting this mess left and right. Inability to manage talent. Executives put blind confidence into people who have no business (or experience) being in their position. Many individuals are never held accountable, and only a few are effective. Others are toxic in how they infantilize their teams, use or permit demeaning and disrespectful language, and form in-group/out-group to withhold information and keep control. There are clear tensions between Planet teams and acquired teams in Europe, with a lack of mutual empathy and understanding for challenges faced by each. Leadership did not guide this change management effectively. Many talk sly rather than solve problems, and get rewarded for it. Restructures, and therefore changes with your manager, will likely occur every 4-6 months; kiss any stability goodbye. Lack of strategic clarity. This company tackled too many lines of business and spent untold amounts developing and acquiring data products and capabilities without validating or tracking any of it. Business strategy has changed every 6 months based on changing tides; there is certainly no culture of data-driven decision-making, because there is no data internally and very little access to customers. There was runaway spending on travel just ahead of major cuts because the business struggled to mature remote procedures. The executive team lacks experience growing a public business. Planet overpromised on the value of its offering and was probably naive about the readiness of the market. It took top line seriously many years too late and is now suffering consequences. A skeleton crew (shifted heavily to Eastern Europe where costs are lower) has the company on life support, and leadership continues to be unclear about strategy. I suspect this is because the only way to survive and grow will be to accept fate as a D&I business… which is putting a lot of eggs in one basket and also not the mission employees signed up for. But it’s time to be honest; the mission is dead and it’s all about shareholder return, now.