People Programs Lead

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 SpaceX, 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

The People Programs Lead will play a critical role in enabling Nominal’s next phase of growth. This role owns the design and execution of core people programs that directly support scaling teams, developing leaders, and driving sustained performance.
You will build and evolve the systems that help Nominal grow faster, lead better, and perform at a high level as complexity increases. You’ll work closely with business leaders and the broader people and talent team to ensure our programs are frictionless, valuable, and tightly aligned to business outcomes.
Nominal’s growth depends on leaders who can scale teams, make strong decisions, and deliver consistently. This role ensures our people programs keep pace with our ambition. You’ll have real ownership, high visibility, and the opportunity to build foundational systems that will shape Nominal for years to come.

💪🏼 What you'll own

Organizational Effectiveness

• Build and evolve Nominal’s talent management strategy to support rapid growth, including talent planning and internal career growth in our non-traditional, flat hierarchy
• Partner with leaders on organizational design, role clarity, and team effectiveness as the company scales
• Identify and address performance and capability gaps that could slow growth

Program Design & Execution

• Translate business priorities into scalable, high-impact people programs
• Drive programs end-to-end, from strategy and design through rollout, adoption, and iteration
• Operate with a builder mindset: move quickly, test, learn, and improve

Performance Management & Talent Development

• Own performance management programs that set clear expectations, reward impact, and accelerate development
• Ensure strong connections between goal setting, feedback, development, and advancement

Leadership Development & Manager Enablement

• Design and scale manager and leadership development programs that raise the bar for people leadership at Nominal
• Equip leaders with the skills to manage growth, lead through change, and build high-performing teams

Learning & Development

• Set the learning and development strategy to build the skills and capabilities Nominal needs today and tomorrow
• Balance speed and quality by leveraging a mix of internal programs, external partners, and self-directed learning

Employee Engagement

• Own engagement programs and listening mechanisms that surface risks and opportunities as we scale
• Partner across People + Talent to embed inclusive practices into hiring, performance, and development programs
• Design programs that foster inclusion, belonging, and equitable growth

🔍 We're looking for someone with

• 7–10+ years of experience building and scaling People Programs, Talent Management, Organizational Development, and Learning & Development.
• Experience building people programs in high-growth, startup and scale-up environments
• Strong understanding of how people systems enable business growth and execution
• Ability to design programs that are structured but not heavy, scalable but not bureaucratic
• Strong partnership skills and comfort influencing senior leaders
• Data-in