Technical Sourcer, Aircraft

Swarmaero; Oxnard (CA); On-site; USD 85,000 - 125,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Meaningful equity

Competitive base salary

Medical, dental, vision, and 401k

PTO and paid sick leave

Monthly wellness stipend

Daily catered lunch (office)

Paid parental leave

Direct impact on national security

World-class team of engineers

Job summary

Swarm Aero seeks a recruiter who speaks aircraft language and can own end-to-end sourcing for engineering roles. You’ll engage with structures, aero, propulsion, avionics, and flight test teams, crafting outreach that resonates with engineers.

You must have hands-on aircraft experience and 2+ years in sourcing or recruiting, plus a relentless, high-bar mindset to win in a defense-forward startup environment.

Qualifications

• Requires deep airplane knowledge and ability to discuss engineering topics with engineers.
• Minimum 2+ years of sourcing or recruiting experience, ideally for engineering roles.
• Ability to write outreach in the language of engineers and talk shop with aircraft teams.

Responsibilities

• Own sourcing pipelines for aircraft engineering, end to end
• Map the aerospace talent market cold: every program, every team, every engineer worth knowing
• Write outreach that speaks an engineer's language, because you speak it too
• Tell the difference between someone who worked on an aircraft and someone who shaped one
• Hold yourself to metrics: response rate, pass-through rate, hires
• Support other teams when aircraft allows. Aircraft always comes first

Skills

Airplane domain knowledge

Sourcing / recruiting

Engineer communication

Job description

Swarm Aero is redefining air power, building the largest swarming UAV and the most versatile swarming aircraft network in the world. The company is moving quickly to launch the first aircraft designed specifically for swarming, as well as the Command & Control software to mobilize swarms of thousands of heterogeneous autonomous assets and empower human operators to achieve superhuman results.

The team has created and exited multiple startups, negotiated defense deals worth billions of dollars, and designed and built 30+ novel aircraft, with aerospace experience from Scaled Composites, Airbus, Archer Aviation, Blue Origin, and Boom Supersonic.

THE ROLE

This is not a generalist sourcing role. We are not looking for someone who can source anything and will learn airplanes on the job. We're looking for an airplane person who happens to be great at sourcing.

You'll find the engineers designing our aircraft: structures, aero, propulsion, avionics, systems, and flight test. That means talking airplanes with airplane people. When you reach out to a structures lead or a flight test engineer, they should know within one message that you speak their language. You'll support some of the best aircraft engineers and recruiters in the industry, and they expect exactly that.

THE WORK

• Own sourcing pipelines for aircraft engineering, end to end
• Map the aerospace talent market cold: every program, every team, every engineer worth knowing
• Write outreach that speaks an engineer's language, because you speak it too
• Tell the difference between someone who worked on an aircraft and someone who shaped one
• Hold yourself to hard numbers: response rate, pass-through rate, hires
• Support other teams when aircraft allows. Aircraft always comes first

YOU

• Are an airplane person first. You've flown, built, turned wrenches on, tested, or designed something that flies. Pilot, A&P, flight line, flight test, military aviation, experimental builder, or a collegiate design team that put something in the air
• Can hold a real conversation with an aircraft engineer about their work, not just their resume
• Know what an aircraft is made of: primary structure, flight controls, propulsion, avionics, and why the tradeoffs between them matter
• Have [2+] years of sourcing or recruiting experience, ideally for engineering roles
• Are relentless. When the obvious searches dry up, you find another way in
• Want to work somewhere the bar is high and stays high

THIS ISN'T FOR YOU IF

• You're a strong generalist sourcer looking to break into aerospace
• Your aviation knowledge comes from reading job descriptions
• You'd rather work a high volume of roles across many domains than go deep on one

WHY THIS SEAT

The engineers you find will design an aircraft from a blank sheet. You'll know exactly what they built, because you understand it too.

HOW WE RECRUIT

We're a small recruiting team building a defense company that has to win. Here's how we operate, and we hire recruiters who already work this way.

The Standard. We know the work deeply. We are not generalists hiding behind job descriptions; we study the engineering, the domain, and the landscape until we can hold a real conversation with a practitioner. Every candidate who talks to us should call it the best recruiting experience of their career, and we each bring our own personality to get there. High touch, never scripted.

How We Think. One foot old school, one foot forward: we're obsessive about the fundamentals of recruiting and restless about finding better ways to do it. We play the long game and hire for what someone will do in two and five years, not just next quarter. And we'd rather define the industry standard than follow it.

How We Operate. Mission first, always. Speed is a competitive weapon, and we use it. Quality over comfort: we'll have the harder conversation with a hiring manager before we'll make the easy hire.

ITAR requirement

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Swarm Aero is an equal opportunity employer

Swarm Aero is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse backgrounds and experiences and make employment decisions without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability.

What We Offer

• Meaningful equity in a high-growth defense technology company
• Competitive base salary commensurate with experience
• Medical, dental, vision, and 401k
• PTO and paid sick leave
• Monthly wellness stipend
• Daily catered lunch (office)
• Paid parental leave
• Direct impact on a critical national security mission
• A world-class team of engineers and operators solving genuinely hard problems