Nominal builds software that lets hardware teams test, iterate, and deploy as fast as software teams.
The Role
The Backend Software Engineer will design and build Nominal's distributed infrastructure for telemetry and validation, focusing on performance, reliability, and scalability.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Nominal
Nominal is building the connected test and operations platform powering the world's most advanced hardware systems, from spacecraft and autonomous vehicles to next-generation defense programs. Our platform gives hardware engineering teams a single place to ingest data, analyze performance, automate test execution, and collaborate across every phase of development, so they can move faster without sacrificing safety or precision. We're a fast-moving team that owns problems end-to-end, works across disciplines, and thrives at the intersection of hardware and software.
We serve top-tier commercial and defense customers, from autonomy leaders like Anduril and Shield AI to next-generation aerospace teams like Hermeus and REGENT, and performance engineering teams like Pratt Miller Motorsports, alongside mission partners within the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force on programs where failure isn’t an option. We’re backed by Sequoia, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Lightspeed. Our team draws from SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition, 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 looking for a Backend Software Engineer; you’ll design and build the distributed infrastructure that powers Nominal’s telemetry and validation platform. This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy working close to the metal of distributed systems — reasoning about throughput, latency, data models, and failure — and who want to see their work directly enable real-world hardware. You’ll own critical backend systems end-to-end, from ingestion pipelines to storage engines to performance tuning in production.
🚀 About the role
- Architect and evolve distributed systems that ingest, process, and persist high-frequency telemetry and sensor data.
- Design storage and indexing strategies for large, time-series, and event-driven datasets with strict performance and correctness requirements.
- Tackle hard problems around scalability, backpressure, fault tolerance, and data consistency in real-time systems.
- Optimize hot paths, reduce tail latency, and improve reliability as the system scales with new customers and use cases.
- Collaborate closely with product, infrastructure, and customer-facing engineers to solve domain-specific problems for cutting-edge hardware teams.
- Influence backend architecture and technical direction, mentoring teammates, and raising the bar for system design across the org.
🔍 We're looking for someone with
- 3+ years building distributed systems where performance, reliability, and operational simplicity matter.
- Strong experience in Go, Rust, or Java, with an emphasis on correctness, clarity, and long-lived systems.
- Deep familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and production tooling like Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform.
- Hands-on experience designing or operating storage systems — time-series databases, columnar formats, or analytics engines (e.g., ClickHouse, TimescaleDB, Druid, InfluxDB, Parquet).
- Experience with streaming or data processing technologies such as Kafka, Apache Arrow, Flink, or Spark.
- Comfort reasoning about distributed systems tradeoffs — latency vs throughput, consistency vs availability, abstraction vs control.
- Clear technical communication and a bias toward ownership: you design it, build it, ship it, and operate it.
✨ 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
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.
CompensationThe base pay range for this role is $130,000 – $230,000 per year.
Skills Required
- 3+ years building distributed systems
- Strong experience in Go, Rust, or Java
- Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure)
- Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform
- Design or operate storage systems (e.g., ClickHouse, TimescaleDB)
- Experience with streaming or data processing technologies (e.g., Kafka)
- Clear technical communication
Nominal Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Nominal and has not been reviewed or approved by Nominal.
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Healthcare Strength — 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage is repeatedly described as covering both employees and dependents, indicating unusually strong healthcare provisioning. Additional mentions of “Platinum” coverage reinforce the sense of a high-tier plan offering.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Unlimited PTO and paid holidays/sick time are presented as part of the core package, suggesting broad time-off benefits on paper. Parental leave is also framed as fully paid in several places, reinforcing overall leave breadth.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellness stipends, daily gourmet lunch (and sometimes dinner), and periodic retreats are consistently highlighted as meaningful lifestyle perks. Learning/development and other small stipends further round out a perks-heavy total rewards posture.
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The Company
What We Do
Nominal builds the essential software stack that enables hardware teams to test and iterate as rapidly as software teams. Nominal empowers engineers to continuously monitor, validate, and deploy innovations, transforming how mission-critical hardware is built and operated.
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