About Nominal
Engineers today are building some of the most ambitious machines humanity has ever seen. They should have AI that’s purpose-built for them.
Nominal is building the Hardware Intelligence Platform that gives engineers increased visibility into complex physical systems, helps them make better decisions, and ultimately gets their products into the real world faster. It brings together the systems, data, intelligence, and applications hardware engineering requires to meet the AI moment. We're building AI systems that reason over real-world engineering data to help engineers understand failures, investigate root causes, and accelerate mission-critical work. This is an opportunity to help define an entirely new category of software at the intersection of AI, distributed systems, and physical engineering. Hardware engineering teams use Nominal to simulate, test, manufacture, and operate the physical systems that keep the world moving, from spacecraft and autonomous vehicles to next-generation energy systems and robotics.
Our customers span aerospace, defense, manufacturing, transportation, energy, and robotics. They include Anduril, Shield AI, Wisk Aero, Pratt Miller Motorsports, Antares, and Shinkei Systems, amongst others, alongside programs within the U.S. Air Force and Navy. Our team draws from SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition, Tesla, and other leading companies, united by a common mission: giving hardware engineers the tools to build the future with speed, safety, and confidence. We're a fast-moving team that owns problems end-to-end, works across disciplines, and thrives at the intersection of hardware and software.
Some of the world’s leading technology investors, including Sequoia, Lightspeed, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, and Insight Partners, are backing Nominal’s ambition to change how machines are built and operated. We’re looking for engineers who want to take on hard problems and help make a new generation of world-changing hardware possible.
About the role
We're looking for an experienced software engineer to join our Hardware Intelligence team. This is a highly ambiguous, zero-to-one engineering role. You'll build the infrastructure, data systems, and AI capabilities that power the next generation of intelligent engineering tools. Rather than implementing predefined product requirements, you'll work alongside customers and product leaders to discover what should exist, and then build it.
Success in this role comes from being comfortable making technical bets, rapidly prototyping new ideas, and turning uncertainty into working software.
What you'll do
- Build the systems that power Hardware Intelligence, including agent infrastructure, evaluation pipelines, retrieval systems, and tooling for reasoning over engineering data.
- Design and ship AI-powered workflows that help engineers investigate anomalies, perform root cause analysis, and understand complex hardware behavior.
- Work across large-scale time series, telemetry, logs, and other engineering datasets to build robust, production-ready systems.
- Prototype new approaches quickly, evaluate them with customers, and iterate based on real-world feedback.
- Partner closely with engineers and product leaders to determine where the team should invest next.
- Help establish engineering patterns, infrastructure, and best practices as Hardware Intelligence scales.
- Engage directly with customers to understand how complex engineering problems are solved today and translate those workflows into product capabilities.
️ Skills that accelerate us
We're less interested in checking every technical box than finding someone who thrives in early-stage environments and enjoys solving difficult, undefined problems.
You might be a great fit if you have:
- 5+ years of experience building AI or machine learning products that shipped to production.
- Experience working with large datasets, time series data, observability platforms, data infrastructure, or machine learning systems.
- A background in ML, data science, applied AI, or adjacent fields that gives you strong intuition for working with data-intensive systems.
- Strong software engineering fundamentals, with experience designing scalable backend or distributed systems.
- Experience taking products from zero-to-one, whether at a startup or inside an entrepreneurial team within a larger company.
- Strong product instincts and curiosity about customer problems.
Nice to have
- Experience working with telemetry, sensors, robotics, aerospace, industrial systems, autonomous systems, or other hardware domains.
- Experience building agentic systems, LLM applications, retrieval pipelines, or evaluation infrastructure.
- Familiarity with time series databases, observability tooling, or data platforms.
- Experience supporting engineers or scientists working with large-scale operational data.
- Prior startup founding experience or experience on an incubation/new products team.
Benefits/Perks
- 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance
- ️ Unlimited PTO and sick leave
- ️ Free lunch, snacks, and coffee
- Professional Development Stipend
- ️ In-office hardware lab with a $250 project stipend
- ️ Annual company retreat
- 12 weeks parental leave
- Fertility and family planning ($15,000 lifetime)
- Wellness stipend ($100/month)
- ️ $500/year hardware sensor stipend
- 401(k)
- Employee-friendly equity terms
- In-office 5 days per week
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
ITAR Requirements
To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.