Manager, Development Test (Aerospace)

Location: Torrance, California, United States; onsite role with potential access to classified information and restricted U.S. Government sites, systems, or information.

Company

hirify.global is an early-stage defense company developing and delivering advanced defense systems.

What you will do

• Build, lead, and mentor a team of 4–7 engineers and technicians.
• Design, build, train, and operate test systems from concept through execution.
• Own R&D development test strategy across structural, dynamic, functional, and environmental domains.
• Manage parallel test campaigns, prioritizing resources and maintaining company-wide visibility into progress.
• Drive tests to failure, identify primary and secondary failure modes, and improve reliability.
• Maintain test infrastructure, lab capabilities, external resources, and a strong safety culture.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years of hands-on hardware testing, prototyping, lab-based engineering, and project management experience.
• Strong familiarity with instrumentation, sensors, and data acquisition systems.
• Experience leading engineering and technician teams and driving cross-functional execution.
• Experience writing technical reports and procedures and building test-result capture frameworks.
• Ability to evaluate system-level risk and develop customer-aligned test strategies.

Nice to have

• Structural or reliability testing experience in aerospace, automotive, or related industries.
• Experience in high-rate development or rapid-prototyping environments.
• Proficiency with Python, LabVIEW, JIRA, DEWESoft, or similar automation tools.
• Exposure to physics-of-failure analysis and reliability engineering.

Culture & Benefits

• Fast-paced early-stage environment with significant ownership and direct impact.
• Generous benefits package.
• Employment may require the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance or other government authorization if the role is designated accordingly.
• Access to export-controlled information requires eligibility under applicable U.S. export-control regulations without additional export licensing.
• Equal opportunity employer with reasonable accommodations available throughout the application and hiring process.