Executive Recruiter (Aerospace/Defense)

Location: El Segundo, California, United States; work 4–5 days onsite from the Hawthorne office.

Salary: $140,000–$175,000 annual base compensation, excluding bonus, equity, and benefits.

Company

hirify.global develops defense technology products powered by Coherent Distributed Networks for defense, commercial aviation, and border protection applications.

What you will do

• Partner with executives, hiring managers, and the Recruiting Lead to define leadership requirements, team dynamics, and strategic hiring goals.
• Develop executive search strategies using market mapping, executive networks, referrals, LinkedIn Recruiter, and targeted outreach.
• Identify, engage, assess, and cultivate relationships with passive senior and executive candidates.
• Manage full-cycle searches, including interview coordination, candidate assessment, offer negotiation, and confidential process execution.
• Advise leadership on market intelligence, compensation benchmarking, competitive landscapes, and organizational fit.
• Analyze pipeline metrics, maintain data integrity, and implement improvements to executive search effectiveness.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in executive or leadership-level search, preferably in a startup, aerospace, defense, or fast-paced technical environment.
• Proven success closing senior leadership, VP, and C-suite hires.
• Experience with Greenhouse ATS, LinkedIn Recruiter, market mapping, and other executive sourcing tools.
• Experience partnering directly with C-suite or founder-level stakeholders on critical hires.
• Strong understanding of leadership competencies and organizational fit across engineering, operations, product, and business functions.
• Exceptional communication, negotiation, relationship-building, analytical, and consultative skills, including the ability to manage confidential, high-stakes searches.

Nice to have

• Existing network of senior leaders and executives in aerospace, defense, or deep tech.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits fully paid by the company.
• 401(k) with a 50% company match up to 6% of pay, FSA, HSA, and life insurance.
• Free daily lunch, no-meeting Fridays, unlimited PTO, and casual dress code.
• Competitive base salary, pre-IPO stock options, relocation assistance, and planned annual bonuses.
• Approximately 350 employees across five global offices.