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Nominal builds software that lets hardware teams test, iterate, and deploy as fast as software teams.
The Role
Build, optimize, and maintain large-scale build systems (Bazel), CI/CD pipelines, and release automation. Own developer infrastructure, observability, telemetry, logging, and metrics. Partner with product teams to remove developer friction and improve engineering productivity as the monorepo and organization scale.
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 Software Engineer to join Nominal's Developer Infrastructure team. You'll develop the build infrastructure that every engineer at Nominal depends on, with an eye towards continuously optimizing the build performance and local devx to better scale with our growing engineering organization. You'll also own the developer infrastructure that keeps engineering velocity and release quality high, such as observability, pre-merge validation, and more. As one of the founding engineers on the team, you'll shape the tooling, developer experience, and engineering practices that every engineer at Nominal relies on from day one
🚀 About The Role
- Build, optimize, and maintain Nominal's large-scale build systems, with Bazel as the highest priority.
- Improve CI/CD pipeline performance, release automation, and release reliability.
- Own developer infrastructure that enables engineering velocity as our monorepo and engineering organization scale.
- Build and maintain observability, telemetry, logging, and metrics infrastructure using tools like Datadog, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry.
- Partner closely with product engineering teams to remove developer friction and improve day-to-day engineering productivity.
⚡ Skills That Accelerate Us
- 4+ years building, optimizing, and maintaining build systems at scale.
- Experience with Bazel or similar build systems.
- Experience working in and scaling large monorepos.
- A track record of improving CI/CD performance, release reliability, and developer productivity using measurable outcomes.
- Practical, startup-minded engineering philosophy - You don't let perfect be the enemy of good, but you approach problems from first principles and build solutions that scale.
- Comfortable owning developer infrastructure end to end, from build tooling and CI/CD to release automation and engineering productivity.
✅ Nice to have:
- Datadog
- Grafana
- OpenTelemetry
- Audit logging
- Kubernetes
- Remote build caches
- Ephemeral development environments, or other developer platform tooling.
✨ 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
- 4+ years building, optimizing, and maintaining build systems at scale
- Experience with Bazel or similar build systems
- Experience working in and scaling large monorepos
- Proven track record of improving CI/CD performance, release reliability, and developer productivity
- Comfortable owning developer infrastructure end-to-end (build tooling, CI/CD, release automation)
- Experience building and maintaining observability, telemetry, logging, and metrics infrastructure
- Familiarity with Datadog, Grafana, OpenTelemetry
- Experience with Kubernetes
- Experience with remote build caches and ephemeral development environments or other developer platform tooling
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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