Nomineer Spotlights – Max, Wesley, and Josh
MAX NAJORK
Software Engineer (Mission Dev)
Former deployment and software engineer at Palantir and Chronosphere
Q: Tell us about your professional background.
A: I joined Palantir out of school, where I spent two years as a Forward Deployed Engineer supporting Airbus in Europe, and then four years as a Software Engineer on our observability team.
I joined Chronosphere after Palantir. They were solving many of the pain-points that I felt with existing observability solutions during my tenure at Palantir. I worked with a few teams at Chronosphere, including a cross-functional team that handled high-priority customer features (similar to Nominal’s Mission Dev), API and storage tooling, and platform search and navigation.
Finally, I joined Radiant AI, an AI tooling company founded by a couple people I knew from Palantir. I really enjoyed the excitement that came with joining as employee #1. Unfortunately, we struggled to find product market fit, which is what brought me to Nominal.
Q: What are you excited to “run with” at Nominal?
A: It seems like there’s tons of demand for what Nominal is building. I’m excited to help meet that demand and ensure that customers get value out of our platform. There’s definitely product market fit, and with that comes a fun set of problems to solve to meet the demand.
Q: Why did you choose to join Nominal?
A: I knew a couple people on the team. It seemed like they were building something interesting, so I reached out to learn more. When I came onsite for the interview, I had a chance to see a product demo and meet some of the broader team, and I was thoroughly impressed with what I saw. It made the decision to join easy.
Q: How would you describe your first impression of working at Nominal?
A: There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but in a good way. There’s a real opportunity to create something big here. That’s exciting to me - the work that we put in is directly correlated to what we get out of it.
Q: What is one thing you are obsessed with?
A: Chocolate chip cookies. My wife and I make a big batch of cookie dough and bake a fresh one every night.
Q: How do you stay grounded?
A: I like to stay active, whether it’s going to the gym, running, swimming, biking, skiing, whatever. It gives me a chance to turn off my brain and enjoy the moment.
WESLEY GOW
Business Operations
Former associate consultant at Bain & Company
Q: Tell us about your professional background.
A: I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit, whether working part-time at an incubator, or pursuing my own ventures. I started and sold two small companies of my own while in college, and I also helped DeepWalk secure their first round of funding. Upon graduation, I joined Bain to build a generalist toolkit and work on hard problems with great people. After a bit, I felt called to return to the startup world, which led me to Nominal!
Q: What are you excited to “run with” at Nominal?
A: Across multiple functions, I’m excited to help Nominal’s internal processes function as a well-oiled, scalable machine (without losing the scrappy startup magic, of course!). Whether that’s finance, growth, investor relations, etc., I’ll be working to make sure we’re operating as smoothly as possible so that everyone else can focus on building great product.
Q: Why did you choose to join Nominal?
A: Across all different kinds of pursuits in my life, I have found it very rewarding to work on hard problems with great people who are mission-aligned. I joined Nominal because I believe it perfectly fits that description. Everyone here believes in the company mission, and I am excited to work in a fast-paced, high-energy environment to help solve the hardest problems.
Q: How would you describe your first impression of working at Nominal?
A: Everyone that I have met has been a unique combination of competent and kind; highly focused on their work, but also committed to welcoming me to Nominal. I feel like it is relatively common to find one or the other, but the combination is pretty amazing. It feels like a place where everyone is focused on delivering high-quality work and is excited about doing so.
Q: What is one thing you are obsessed with?
A: I have all kinds of obsessions that have pulled me in lots of different directions! At UChicago, I was a captain of the football team, a treasurer for the chess club, a speaker for our student philosophy group, and an avid member of musicals, intramural sports, and other student organizations. I’ve been able to work on a lot of different kinds of teams and loved the variety of experiences that have come from my obsessions.
This is incredibly niche, but I love creating & collecting good antimetaboles while I’m reading / writing (cool quotes / aphorisms where you flip words around to make new meanings in the sentence—particularly cool when you’re using a homonym to change the function). Ex: “Questions we cannot answer are far better for us than answers we cannot question.”
Q: How do you stay grounded?
A: Being creative / artistic in some shape or form. I find it forces me to slow down and use different parts of my brain when I’ve been working a lot. I enjoy playing piano and am currently writing a book.
JOSH LIZOTTE
Mission Operations
Former project manager at Axon and the US Navy
Q: What are you excited to “run with” at Nominal?
A: Standing shoulder to shoulder with our DoD customers to be able to both accelerate their own mission accomplishment using the Nominal platform and to push the bounds of what we deliver to further enhance the toolkit that we offer.
Q: Why did you choose to join Nominal?
A: Upon interacting with the team members and seeing the velocity of Nominal’s development efforts, it was obvious to me that Nominal’s product offerings are already becoming necessary for fast-paced hardware development across mission-critical areas. I am more than excited to have the opportunity to insert myself at the leading edge of these development efforts with Nominal!
Q: How would you describe your first impression of working at Nominal?
A: Absolute confirmation of all my reasons to initially join. The team is brilliant and cares so deeply about driving solutions for our customers while maintaining an everyday collegiate atmosphere that stokes collaboration.
Q: What is one thing you are obsessed with?
A: Dovetailing with my professional world, the national security space and efforts to respond to the rapidly changing geopolitical and technological environment is an area where I cannot help but consume any and all media that I can get my hands on. I am more than happy to stay up late reading international publications for their perspectives on the space or give up an evening to listen to a lecture from a senior official. This, and trance music of course.
Q: How do you stay grounded?
A: When I break away from my obsession and truly disconnect, I love to road bike and scuba and am (slowly) working to visit all our nation’s national parks!