Software Engineer, Developer Infrastructure - Build Systems
Software Engineering, Other Engineering
Washington, USA · Los Angeles, CA, USA · New York, NY, USA · Seattle, WA, USA · Austin, QC, Canada
USD 130k-230k / year
Posted on Jul 28, 2026
Software Engineer, Developer Infrastructure - Build Systems
New York, NY • Los Angeles, CA • Austin, TX • Seattle, WA
Software Engineering
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 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.
Compensation
The base pay range for this role is $130,000 – $230,000 per year.
First name *
Last name *
Email *
LinkedIn URL *
Phone number *
Location *
Resume *
Click to upload or drag and drop here
Cover letter
Click to upload or drag and drop here
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)? *
U.S. Work Authorization - Are you authorized to work in the United States? *
Will you require sponsorship from Nominal for employment now or in the future? (e.g, OPT, H1B visa)? *
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? *
If you have held a U.S. security clearance in the past, what clearance level have you held? *
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
Race
Race and ethnicity descriptions
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 disabilityRecently 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 serviceActive 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 DefenseArmed 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).Veteran status
By applying you agree to Gem's terms and privacy policy.
Save your info to apply to other roles faster & help employers reach you.
Req ID: R110