My Journey to Planet

“It’s only after you’ve stepped outside of your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”- Roy T Bennett

From a young age, I was the girl afraid of her own shadow. A set of early traumatic experiences combined with my already shy, inhibited disposition left me with crippling anxiety and a paralyzing fear of the unknown. As a child, I nearly quit my swimming classes because I became hysterical at the thought of putting my feet in the water. In high school, I would conveniently excuse myself to the restroom whenever I expected I would be called on in class. I had to quell imminent panic attacks walking through the hallways on a regular basis.

Living this way was a struggle, and I would summon the strength to fight the fear in whatever way I could. I took writing and improvisational theatre classes. I played the flute in my school marching band, even participating in the annual talent show. I also became a competitive swimmer. And I learned early on just how significant perseverance and dedication was.

Beginnings as a Preschool Educator/Therapist

Battling with these inner demons throughout my early years was in part, what attracted me to the helping professions. I worked as a preschool teacher, eventually deciding to pursue an advanced degree in Family Therapy. I was humbled by the propensity for change and growth in the preschoolers and clients I worked with. I saw the shift from a petrified child clinging desperately to his/her parent’s pant leg at the start of the school year to one who was fearlessly and happily running with friends in the playground. I saw members of a family unit begin to readily adopt more adaptive communication strategies in session with one another rather than stonewalling or yelling over one another.

And although I came to the painful decision that Early Childhood Education and Family Therapy were not the right career path for me in the long-term, I knew I still wanted to utilize the skills I learned in some capacity moving forward.

STEM Education Initiatives and Building a Growth Mindset

I was at a bit of an impasse. I didn’t really know what my next direction would be. I continued working with children, and became involved with Girls Who Code and The Coding Space in NYC. One of the foundational principles that these programs embodied was that of a growth mentality, the notion that skill and ability are not fixed, innate traits, but rather, can be cultivated and developed with sustained effort over time. Setbacks and failure were not shameful experiences meant to be sequestered away into the abyss, but instead viewed as opportunities to grow and learn from, and dare I say, almost revel in it.

And I found that I actually liked Computer Science, too. It just wasn’t a subject matter that I was ever exposed to growing up. Sadly, a lot of children simply don’t have much early exposure to the field to realize if it’s an area of study they could even enjoy, and this is especially true for girls and minorities. So, I began slowly, but seriously considering pursuing a Masters degree in Computer Science. However, I quickly became plagued with doubts and uncertainties. Could I really get an advanced degree in this field? Would I be able to hack it? What if I managed to only confirm the negative stereotypes that exist that women aren’t good with math or science?

Shift Towards Computer Science

I chose not to let those fears completely consume me, and plunged ahead in my pursuits, entering my program at SUNY New Paltz in January of 2019. There were many obstacles to overcome, some which I anticipated while others that caught me completely off guard. Every class had me thrown into the deep end of different programming languages and frameworks. I was struggling with how to merge my former identities of being a childcare educator and therapist-in-training with that of a burgeoning software engineer. And as we all can painfully relate, I was quickly having to learn ways to navigate a remote environment in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, along with the other cascading effects the pandemic wrought.

I knew that whatever direction I took after graduating, I wanted to contribute to the public good and with a company that had a strong commitment towards driving social change. I’m really grateful that I learned about Planet, and the myriad of ways Planet uses satellite imagery to serve the needs of customers across the globe, particularly at a time when the devastation of the impending climate crisis is becoming increasingly visible. The role of the Developer Relations for Open Initiatives Intern was described as “part software engineer, part technical writer, and part educator” and attracted me almost immediately. It’s been a role that has truly afforded me the opportunity to leverage my background in education, therapy, and software engineering in new, creative and innovative ways, and I have felt so fortunate to have worked with the Developer Relations team this summer.

Challenges as a Planet Intern

When I started at Planet 12 weeks ago, I had to contend with many difficulties simultaneously. It was my first professional role in the tech world. Not only was I learning how to translate academic knowledge into a real world setting, but I was doing so while managing the stress of working at a large company for the first time. I also had to transition from being a student to an employee navigating a remote environment in a post-COVID world. And while I did have some limited exposure to geospatial concepts prior to Planet, I was still largely unfamiliar with the remote sensing landscape as a whole.

I was battling impostor syndrome from Day 1. Everything felt overwhelming. My anxiety was running rampant. I struggled to silence the questions swirling around my head. Could I be successful here? Would I really be able to make it in the software engineering world?

I knew I had to re-frame the message from the beginning, and to speak to myself with empathy and kindness, the same way I would speak to any of my students who were having doubts and struggling. It meant wholeheartedly embracing the feeling of not knowing and being transparent and honest about that experience. That inner voice became no longer an adversary silencing me, but a friend helping me push the boundaries of what I believed I was capable of. And I began to frame this mindset not only for myself, but in thinking of how to help others as well.

The Importance of Empathy

At the heart of education, clinical work, and developer advocacy is empathy for the audiences you are working with, being attuned to their struggles and equipping them with the tools and resources they need to succeed. It’s about creating a strong foundation built upon solid trust and understanding. There is a genuine desire to empower those you’re working with whatever barriers or hurdles they are currently facing.

Cloud Native Geospatial- New Resources for Planet Developer Center

This perspective grounded me in how I approached creating tutorials throughout my internship this summer. I was faced with the challenge of learning about the Cloud Native Geospatial ecosystem, a still evolving space where concepts can be difficult to comprehend for those not already heavily immersed in the communities, especially for those still grasping the fundamentals. I was completely unfamiliar with the two key components of this ecosystem, Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs(COGs) and the Spatial Temporal Asset Catalog(STAC), and struggled to situate myself to the environment in the beginning.

My initial focus was on grasping the big picture. What does Cloud Native Geospatial really mean? And why should anyone care? Well, it really is a collection of tools and software that are designed to work on the cloud from the very beginning. And COGs and STAC are really the core features that make this possible. Being able to shift to cloud workflows is significant because it allows us to manage the exponential growth of data availability and analyze large-scale trends in real-time. We can shift from downloading satellite imagery to streaming it like music videos, reducing the barrier of entry into the field and making satellite imagery accessible to wider audiences.

Once I began to understand the why, I could begin to tackle the how.

COGs

Trying to learn about the inner structure of a COG was certainly difficult without having much experience with regular GeoTIFFs. I learned that COGs are in fact just GeoTIFFs, but are specifically formatted to work on the cloud. But it was difficult to understand what made them optimized for the cloud in the first place. The first COG tutorial aims at answering that question, breaking down the organization of COGs (internal tiling, overviews, HTTP GET Range Requests) in a digestible way. I found that visualizations really enhanced my own understanding, and wanted to make sure to include visual aids and diagrams as much as possible to help others as well.

The second COG tutorial uses Planet’s Data API and Orders API to download some regular GeoTIFFs and demonstrate ways they can be converted into COGs. And the final COG tutorial illustrates the power of COGs, being able to stream imagery through tools like cogeo and Titiler.

STAC

Trying to get a handle on STAC proved to be more challenging than COGs. At first, I was a bit lost on what STAC was trying to achieve. The more I read, the more it began to make sense. STAC ultimately seeks to establish a unified, standard language for representing satellite imagery through a network of json files, where each file adheres to a core specification depending on the part of the STAC they are referring to. The goal is to make searching for satellite imagery easier and more efficient reducing the need to pursue through the catalogs of many providers, all who structure their APIs differently.

The first STAC tutorial breaks down the individual STAC components, again providing many diagrams to make the subject as accessible as possible. The goal of the following tutorial in the series was to demonstrate how to create a basic STAC catalog with Planet imagery and verify that it’s STAC compliant.

Final Thoughts

Working at Planet this summer has been a wonderful experience and I can’t believe how much I’ve grown in just 12 weeks! I look forward to how these resources evolve over time, and I’m happy I was able to contribute and introduce these topics as part of the Planet Developer Resource Center.