Geert Barentsen
Senior Software Engineer at Planet
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolGeert Barentsen is a senior software engineer in San Francisco with a PhD in Physics and 14 years of professional experience building data-driven systems for space and autonomy. He has led large scientific data programs—most notably directing public access to NASA’s Kepler mission—and now drives hyperspectral calibration for Planet’s greenhouse-gas mapping constellation. Geert blends rigorous research methods (Bayesian inference, probabilistic graphical models) with production engineering at petabyte scale, having implemented QA, regression testing, and cloud-based metric pipelines at organizations like Zoox and NASA. An active contributor to open-source astronomy libraries such as Astropy and Lightkurve, he focuses on reliable FITS handling, photometry docs, and test-driven improvements that make complex science reproducible. Colleagues rely on him to translate messy observational data into well-tested, user-friendly products that power discovery and operational decision-making.
14 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
MSc Computer Science (Data Mining), MSc Computer Science (Data Mining) at University of AntwerpPhD Physics, PhD Physics at Queen's University BelfastHigh School Maths & Science, High School Maths & Science at Sint-Gummaruscollege, Lier
English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish
Stackoverflow
11reputation
304reached
2answers
0questions
Github Skills (19)
unit-testing10
debug10
pytest10
python10
astronomy10
testing10
wcs10
fits10
astropy10
regression-testing10
documentation10
software-quality9
time-series9
data-analysis9
photo-viewer8
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
lightkurve/lightkurve
Jan 2018 - Dec 2022
A friendly package for Kepler & TESS time series analysis in Python.
Role in this project:
Developer (Likely a Contributor)
Developer (Likely a Contributor)Contributions:57 releases, 120 reviews, 968 commits in 4 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Geert contributed to the lightkurve repository by adding and modifying unit tests, which included verifying correct time scales, data consistency, and handling of NaN values, in addition to updating the code for compatibility. The user also made improvements to ensure various functionalities like slicing and plotting features worked correctly and implemented more descriptive error messages. They also refactored code to provide additional support to the community, to reflect an increase of data from TESS, or to improve overall code quality
tesskeplerpythontime-series-analysisastrophysics
astropy/astropy
Jul 2013 - Oct 2022
Astronomy and astrophysics core library
Role in this project:Back-end Developer & QA Engineer
Back-end Developer & QA EngineerContributions:53 reviews, 94 commits, 14 PRs in 9 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Geert primarily contributed to the `astropy/astropy` repository by addressing bug fixes and implementing new features. Their work focused on the `wcs` and `io.fits` sub-packages, resolving issues related to `footprint_to_file`, `validate`, and the `fitsheader` script. They also added regression tests to ensure the stability of these features, showcasing a commitment to quality assurance. The user demonstrated an understanding of FITS file handling and testing methodologies within an astronomy and astrophysics context.
astrologypythonscienceastrophysicsastrodynamics
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