Director, Talent Acquisition & Onboarding — Defense Tech

World View; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life Insurance

Job summary

World View, now part of Ondas Sentinel, seeks a Director, Talent Acquisition & Onboarding to lead end-to-end recruitment and onboarding for a fast-growing defense tech organization. This on-site role reports to the CPO and collaborates with leaders to translate growth plans into hiring actions.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years in talent acquisition leadership, strong stakeholder influence, and hands-on ability to design staffing processes, oversee onboarding, and ensure compliant,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in HR, Business, Organizational Psychology, Communications, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years in progressive talent acquisition leadership within high-growth environments.
• Experience building structured workforce intake, requisition governance, sourcing, selection, and onboarding.
• Proven ability to recruit technical, engineering, manufacturing, operations, program, corporate, and leadership talent, especially aerospace/defense.
• Experience with government contracting, security-cleared talent, ITAR/export controls preferred.
• Strong influence with senior hiring managers and partnerships.
• Proficient in ATS, recruiting analytics, process design, vendor management, and data reporting.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; executive presence.
• Knowledge of federal/state employment requirements; on-site Irvine/Tucson travel.

Responsibilities

• Own workforce demand intake and translate needs into practical hiring plans, capacity forecasts, service expectations, and sourcing priorities aligned with business growth, program milestones, budgets, and critical capability needs.
• Shape employer positioning and lead differentiated sourcing strategies across technical, engineering, manufacturing, operations, program, corporate, executive, and security-cleared talent.
• Lead recruitment operations and governance, including requisition workflows, interview coordination, applicant tracking, agency management, documentation, reporting, and continuous improvement.
• Set clear hiring manager expectations for role definition, interview readiness, timely feedback, structured assessment, decision quality, and candidate communication, addressing delays or inconsistency constructively.
• Deliver a consistent, inclusive candidate experience from first contact through acceptance, and coordinate competitive, internally aligned offers with People, Compensation, Finance, and business leaders.
• Own the transition from offer acceptance through onboarding, coordinating People Operations, Security, IT, Facilities, Payroll, and hiring managers to ensure a consistent day-one and week-one experience across Ondas Sentinel.
• Build dashboards and operating rhythms that provide visibility into demand, pipeline health, hiring outcomes, manager responsiveness, and candidate experience.
• Lead and scale the internal recruiting team and external partners, balancing quality, speed, cost, and capacity.
• Ensure recruitment and onboarding practices comply with applicable employment, equal opportunity, privacy, record-keeping, government contracting, export control, and security requirements, escalating risks promptly.

Skills

ATS proficiency

Recruiting analytics

Process design

Vendor management

Stakeholder management

Data-driven reporting

Education

Bachelor’s degree in HR/Business/Organizational Psychology/Communications

Tools

Applicant Tracking Systems

Job description

World View, now part of Ondas Sentinel, seeks a Director, Talent Acquisition & Onboarding to lead end-to-end recruitment and onboarding for a fast-growing defense tech organization. This on-site role reports to the CPO and collaborates with leaders to translate growth plans into hiring actions.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years in talent acquisition leadership, strong stakeholder influence, and hands-on ability to design staffing processes, oversee onboarding, and ensure compliant,