Software Engineer, Runtime Infrastructure

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.

Join Nominal as a Software Engineer, Runtime Infrastructure
Nominal runs mission-critical software wherever our customers need it: in our cloud, in theirs, and on disconnected networks for defense programs. An engineer might be watching a vehicle in real time or working through terabytes of post-test data. Either way, every layer between the hardware and the chart on their screen has to be fast and correct. Our customers expect a lot from us on reliability, security, and compliance. Runtime Infrastructure builds the libraries, services, and standards that let every Nominal team meet that bar by default.

As a Software Engineer on Runtime Infrastructure, you'll build the foundation the rest of engineering builds on. That covers how our services and applications are observed, how they record who did what, how they talk to each other, and how they behave under load and failure. Your main users are other Nominal engineers. If you do this well, they ship faster, catch problems sooner, and meet our customers' standards without having to think about it. Through them, your work reaches the aerospace, defense, and autonomy teams who use Nominal for mission-critical testing.

We're hiring both backend and full stack engineers for this team. You'll build services, libraries, and
[…]
eeping APIs compatible as many teams build on them.

Distributed Tracing
Experience instrumenting services and following a request across process, network, and browser boundaries.

Performance Engineering
Experience profiling CPU and memory, load testing, and turning measurements into concrete improvements.

Resilience Patterns
Experience with backpressure, bulkheads, rate limiting, retries, and graceful degradation in production systems.

Developer Experience
A track record of building tools, libraries, or platforms that made other engineers more productive.

Async Rust
Experience with Tokio or similar, and a feel for what the runtime is doing under the hood.

Frontend Architecture
Experience designing how large TypeScript/React applications are structured: data fetching, caching, state management, and the API boundaries they depend on.

✨ 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 – $310,000 per year.