Mission Operations Engineer

About Nominal

Nominal is building the software infrastructure that powers the world’s most advanced hardware systems — from spacecraft and autonomous vehicles to next-generation industrial machines. Our platform ingests high-rate telemetry, validates complex autonomy software in real time, and helps engineering teams iterate faster without sacrificing safety or precision. We’re a small, fast-moving team of engineers and operators who own problems end-to-end, work across disciplines, and thrive on solving challenges at the intersection of hardware and software. As a dual-use platform, we're serving top-tier commercial and defense customers, including the U.S. Navy, United States Air Force, Shield AI, and Anduril.

We’re backed by top-tier investors — Sequoia, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Lightspeed Ventures — who share our mission to accelerate innovation in mission-critical systems. Our team brings experience from SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition, and other leading companies, united by a common goal: enabling hardware engineers to push the boundaries of advanced technology with speed, safety, and precision.

In this pivotal role, you'll bridge Nominal's software with real-world applications, becoming an indispensable advisor to our customers. You'll ensure our solutions not only meet but exceed operational requirements, tailoring deployments to unique environments, providing comprehensive training, and directly addressing any challenges that arise. Your work will transform customer operations, enhance user experiences, and drive Nominal's technology to new frontiers.

🚀 About the role:
• Deploy & Integrate: Take Nominal's tech to operation on the ground, tailoring solutions to fit our clients' high-stakes environments perfectly.
• Build Relationships & Business: You're not just deploying technology; you're growing Nominal's presence and impact and establishing deep, productive partnerships. You’re acting as an account manager and product expert, and important relational and technical capital is on your shoulders.
• Train & Support: You're on the front lines, making sure our users understand our products and can use them to their full potential.
• Enhance & Evolve: Your feedback loops are gold, turning user experiences into actionable insights for continuous product improvement.
• Solve & Streamline: See an issue? You're on it, with the autonomy to fix problems fast and keep our technology ahead of the curve.
• Be the Bridge: You're the vital link between Nominal and our customers, translating needs into solutions and ensuring seamless collaboration across all fronts.

🔍 We're looking for someone with:
• Proven Engineering Expertise: 4+ years of professional experience and have worked in the trenches of hardware engineering. You have firsthand experience in environments like propulsion test stands, satellite mission operations, or flight testing. Your resume says, "I've built and tested the future."
• Technical Sharpshooter: Your intellectual curiosity drives you to solve complex problems. You think in systems and see the big picture, yet you're all about nailing the details. You have a strong intuition for the math and physics our customers encounter daily.
• Communicator & Influencer: You articulate complex ideas with ease and confidence, steering conversations and projects with clarity and honesty.
• Dynamic Leader & Team Player: With a mix of humility, eagerness to learn, and empathy, you're a natural at leading and lifting those around you. You don't just spot problems; you solve them.
• Project Maestro: You have a solid track record of turning technical concepts into reality and managing the full cycle from planning to deployment.
• Ready to Roll: Up to 50% travel? No problem. You're ready to be where the action is, anywhere, anytime.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. TS Clearance

⚡ Skills that supercharge us:
• Customer-facing skills: Experienced consultant, customer success leader, and/or technical program manager
• In-Field Hardware Mastery: Proficiency with hardware engineering tools such as DAQs, DDS, Nix, RTOS, MCAP, H5, TDMS, LabVIEW, MATLAB/Simulink, and WinPlot.
• Data Engineering Proficiency: Expertise in SQL, Python, Pandas, Influx, Grafana. Familiarity with Spark, Arrow, Kafka, Beam, and Flink.

✨ 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.