Mission Development Engineer, Nominal
New Grad, Summer 2027
Unified software suite to test and operate hardware
Open for applications
Unified software suite to test and operate hardware
201-500 employees
Open for applications
201-500 employees
Company mission
To provide the tools and infrastructure engineers need to deliver mission-critical capabilities at scale in the shortest time possible.
Role
Who you are
- You’re graduating in Summer 2027 or sooner and are interested in a full-time position
- You have strong core engineering skills and hands-on experience building software, whether through internships, personal projects, or academic work
- You want to work directly with the people using your software and understand whether what you’ve built is making a difference
- You’re excited to work through open-ended problems, learn unfamiliar systems, and figure out what’s needed to get a solution into use
- You have a personal passion for solving challenging problems and contributing to the future of critical infrastructure
- Your peers would describe you as ambitious, resourceful, and perseverant
What the job involves
- 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’re looking for students with solid engineering fundamentals on track to graduate in Summer 2027 or sooner
- As a Mission Dev (forward deployed software engineering) engineer at Nominal, you’ll work directly with engineers building and testing complex hardware systems like nuclear reactors, rockets, and supersonic aircraft
- You’ll learn how our customers work, understand what’s slowing them down, and build software that helps them move faster
- The role combines hands-on software engineering with product judgment: figuring out what to build, shipping it, and working with users to make sure it solves their problem
- Work directly with customer engineers to understand their testing and analysis workflows and identify problems you can solve with software
- Design and build integrations, data pipelines, and applications that connect Nominal to our customers’ systems and help them work with high-frequency, high-volume hardware data
- Own projects from understanding the problem through building, deploying, and supporting the solution, with mentorship from experienced engineers and domain experts
- Put working software in users’ hands early, learn from how they use it, and iterate quickly based on their feedback
- Bring what you learn back to our product and engineering teams, helping turn solutions for individual customers into capabilities that benefit many
Our take
Whilst leading workflow platforms such as Monday and Basecamp are designed for general use, teams in more specific industries may benefit from experiences designed for their sector. Nominal has built a data analysis platform and workflow system tailored to the needs of engineering teams managing complex machines in industries such as aerospace and defense.
Nominal’s platform caters to engineering teams who develop, validate and monitor hardware, enabling them to build observability and control over mission-critical machines. It automates routine tasks and streamlines collaboration between team members, ensuring that all stages of a machine’s development have rigorous oversight.
Having only come out of stealth in 2024, Nominal’s path to market has been accelerated by several rounds of funding. This is being used to expand operations and business reach as it attempts to cut into a competitive market. With its target audience pitch well articulated, the company has become the fastest-growing software platform in hardware development with 6X customer growth across aerospace, defense, energy, robotics and manufacturing.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Mar 2026
$80m
SERIES B
Jun 2025
$75m
SERIES B
Total funding: $182.5m
Company benefits
- 100% covered health, dental, and vision insurance (for you and family)
- $500/year hardware sensor stipend
- 12-weeks parental leave
- In-office 5 days per week
- 401K
- Employee-friendly equity terms
- Unlimited paid vacation
- Wellness Stipend ($100/mo)
- Fertility and family planning ($15,000 lifetime)
- Learning & development stipend
- Gourmet lunch provided daily
Company HQ
Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, CA
Leadership
Jason Hoch
(Co-Founder)Previously a Software Engineer/Engineering Lead at Vercel, Newfront Insurance and Palantir Technologies.
Cameron McCord
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously an Investor at Lux Capital. Was also Head of Defense at Saildrone, Advisor at Applied Intuition, and worked in Product and Growth at Anduril Industries.
Bryce Strauss
(Co-Founder)Previously an MBS and MBA Candidate at Harvard Business School, as well as Summer Associate at The Engine and a member of the Executive Leadership Development Programme at Lockheed Martin.
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