Software Engineer, AI Platform

Software Engineer, AI Platform New York, NY • Los Angeles, CA • Austin, TX • Seattle, WA

AI

In office

Full-time

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 building Hardware Intelligence (HINT): 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.

🚀 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:

• 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
• ✈️ 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.

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This position requires access to information and technology that is subject to U.S. export controls. Your responses to the questions below will be used solely to determine your eligibility under U.S. law to receive information and materials subject to U.S. export controls. Are you any of the following “protected individual(s)” as defined in the Immigration and Naturalization Act, 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)? *

A person lawfully admitted for permanent residence of the United States (i.e. Green Card holder)

A person admitted as a refugee to the United States under 8 U.S.C. 1157

A person admitted as an asylee to the United States under 8 U.S.C. 1158

A United States citizen or national

None of the above

U.S. Work Authorization - Are you authorized to work in the United States? *

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No

Will you require sponsorship from Nominal for employment now or in the future? (e.g, OPT, H1B visa)? *

Yes

No

Clearance Eligibility - Do you presently hold an active U.S. security clearance, or are you eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance? *

Yes, I hold an active U.S. security clearance

Yes, I'm eligible for a U.S security clearance

No

If you have held a U.S. security clearance in the past, what clearance level have you held? * Confidential

Secret

Top Secret

N/A - have never held a U.S. security clearance

This position requires 5 days a week onsite in one of our offices in LA, NYC, Austin, or Seattle. Are you able to work 5 days in office in one of these locations? *

Yes

No

Voluntary Self-Identification To comply with government reporting requirements, we invite candidates to participate in the self-identification survey below. Your completion of this form is entirely optional, and your decision will neither influence the hiring process nor any subsequent stages. Any information you choose to share will be kept confidential and stored in a secure file. As outlined in our Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we uphold a commitment to non-discrimination based on any protected group status specified in applicable laws. Gender

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Voluntary Self-Identification of Veteran Status VEVRAA requires Government contractors to take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment protected veterans. To help us measure the effectiveness of our outreach and recruitment efforts of veterans, we are asking you to tell us if you are a veteran covered by VEVRAA. If you believe that you belong to any of the following categories of protected veterans, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. Veteran status descriptions Disabled veteran A veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military and is entitled to disability compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to disability compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, or was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability Recently separated veteran A veteran separated during the three-year period beginning on the date of the veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S military, ground, naval, or air service Active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran A veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge was authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense Armed Forces service medal veteran A veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military ground, naval, or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985 (61 Fed. Reg. 1209).

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Req ID: R102