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Swarm Aero
Legal & HR 1d ago

Head of Talent Acquisition & Hiring

Swarm Aero
United StatesUnited States
Full-time
Not Disclosed
Senior-Level

Job Description

Key Skills Required

Master these to land this role

Hiring ManagersDefense BDStartup ExperienceRecruiterExecutive Search

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The Role

Great technology loses to good technology that reaches the customer first. You'll hire the people who make sure ours gets there, and the people who keep the company running while it scales.

This seat owns hiring for Mission and defense business development, business operations, finance and accounting, real estate, and marketing. The searches are fewer, but every one of them matters. Many are the first hire in a function: the finance leader who takes us into our next stage, the real estate lead who helps stand up a new facility, the capture and program people who put our aircraft and software in front of the warfighter. We treat them like the high-stakes searches they are.

The Work

  • Own full-cycle hiring across Mission, business operations, finance and accounting, real estate, and marketing

  • Recruit defense BD, capture, program, and mission roles with real credibility, and know where those people come from: primes, defense tech startups, the Pentagon, and the operational force

  • Run senior and first-of-kind searches like an executive search partner: map the market, calibrate early, and close hard

  • Be the advisor first-time hiring managers didn't know they needed. Challenge the role when it's wrong and help define what great looks like

  • Build relationships with future leaders before we need them, so the next search starts warm

  • Convince exceptional people who never pictured themselves in defense that this is the most important work they'll ever do

You

  • Have 5+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, including senior or executive-level searches

  • Have recruited in or around defense, government, or national security, and know the difference between BD, capture, and program management

  • Have closed candidates who had other options, including at the leadership level

  • Earn hiring managers' trust by telling them the truth about the market, even when it's not what they want to hear

  • Love range. A controller, a head of marketing, and a defense BD lead in the same week sounds like a good week to you

Bonus Points

  • Executive search or agency background paired with in-house startup experience

  • A network in the defense BD, capture, or military community

  • Experience hiring finance, real estate, or marketing leaders at a scaling company

  • Military service or experience recruiting veterans and transitioning service members

Why This Seat

You'll build the teams that take our technology to the fight, and the teams that keep us standing while we grow.

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.

If that reads like a description of how you already work, we want to talk.

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.

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

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Swarm Aero (operating at swarm.aero) is an aerospace and defense company pioneering large-scale unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms engineered for high-stakes, communications-limited environments. Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Oxnard, California, Swarm Aero redefines defense capabilities by enabling small teams to deploy thousands of autonomous drones simultaneously—solving the challenge of traditional airpower constraints in contested or remote theaters. Under the hood, its proprietary swarm software orchestrates decentralized coordination, adaptive mission planning, and resilient communications, ensuring operational effectiveness even when conventional networks are compromised. This empowers military and allied forces to execute precision strikes, surveillance, and logistics with unprecedented scalability and efficiency. Backed by a $35 million Series A round led by Two Sigma Ventures and Silent Ventures, Swarm Aero is accelerating its mission to deliver next-generation airpower solutions tailored for the Pacific theater and beyond.

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