Legal Counsel

About Nominal

Nominal is building the software infrastructure powering 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 enables engineers to 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 challenges at the intersection of hardware and software.

As a dual-use platform, we serve top-tier commercial and defense customers, including the U.S. Navy, United States Air Force, Shield AI, and Anduril. We’re backed by Sequoia, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Lightspeed Ventures. Our team draws experience from Space

X, Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition, and other leading companies — united by a common mission: enabling hardware engineers to push the boundaries of advanced technology with speed, safety, and precision.

About

The Role

Nominal is hiring a Product & Commercial Counsel to join our growing legal team as our second attorney overall. This is not a traditional “lane-bound” legal role. You’ll be embedded directly with the teams building and selling our platform — partnering with Product, Engineering, and Go-to-Market to help Nominal scale responsibly in a complex, highly regulated dual-use environment. You will own commercial deal execution end-to-end, support government and defense-adjacent contracting alongside our General Counsel, and help guide product decisions involving privacy, security, IP, and cross-border data governance.

The goal is simple: help Nominal move fast with sound judgment, enabling teams to execute confidently while reducing friction and avoiding preventable risk. Depending on the strengths of the candidate, this role may lean more heavily toward:

• Commercial contracting + GTM execution, or

• Product counseling + privacy/data governance
Over time, this role can expand meaningfully in scope and leadership as Nominal grows.

You’ll Do

Commercial & Deal Execution

• Own and negotiate a wide range of commercial agreements, including enterprise SaaS agreements, data terms, and strategic partnership arrangements

• Support and advise on U.S. government and defense-adjacent customer agreements, including FAR/DFARS-driven provisions, in collaboration with the General Counsel

• Partner closely with Sales and Business teams to move deals forward efficiently — escalating true edge cases rather than spending cycles on routine negotiation

• Develop and refine templates, playbooks, fallback positions, and internal guidance to increase deal velocity over time

Product Counseling:
Privacy, Data, and Security

• Provide pragmatic legal guidance throughout the product lifecycle, advising on how architecture and deployment models affect privacy, security, and regulatory risk

• Advise on cross-border data issues and jurisdictional requirements as Nominal expands into new customer environments and geographies

• Help design and scale a right-sized privacy and data governance program appropriate for Nominal’s growth stage

• Partner with internal stakeholders on security and compliance frameworks relevant to enterprise and defense environments (e.g., NIST, FedRAMP, CMMC, GDPR)

• Support incident response planning and execution, including legal response strategy and notice obligations

Product, IP, and Platform Risk

• Review and advise on product decisions involving data use, security posture, customer obligations, and IP considerations

• Draft and negotiate privacy-, security-, and IP-related provisions in customer and partner agreements

• Triage and manage standard IP issues and work with outside counsel for specialized matters

Legal Team Building

• Serve as a key partner to the General Counsel in building and scaling Nominal’s legal function

• Help shape internal legal processes that support speed, clarity, and consistent decision-making across teams

You May Be a Good Fit If You

• Have a J.D. from an accredited law school and active bar membership in good standing

• Have ~6–10 years of legal experience…