Software Engineer, Developer Infrastructure - Build Systems

The posting, as Nominal wrote it

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. 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

• 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
• 👶 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 .

Compensation
The base pay range for this role is $179,000 – $250,000 per year.