Founding Recruiter

Icarus•El Segundo, CA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Icarus builds solar-powered aircraft designed to fly at 60,000 feet for weeks at a time, providing persistent, affordable, and scalable presence in the Stratosphere. The Founding Recruiter will own recruiting from the first outbound message through the signed offer, working directly with the CEO and hiring managers to find and hire exceptional people across engineering, manufacturing, flight operations, and business. The role combines hands-on sourcing and candidate closing with building practical recruiting systems to support Icarus's growth. The recruiter will develop targeted talent maps, conduct thoughtful outreach, translate technical needs into role requirements and interview plans, build candidate relationships, coordinate offers and relocation discussions, and maintain recruiting operations in Greenhouse. They will track recruiting results, identify and resolve bottlenecks, and turn the work happening in the factory and field into compelling job descriptions and candidate conversations. The role is based at Icarus's El Segundo factory five days a week.

Requirements

At least 3 years of recruiting experience with a record of sourcing and closing difficult technical roles.
Experience recruiting in hardware, aerospace, defense, robotics, manufacturing, or another technically demanding environment.
Strong sourcing instincts and the ability to find candidates beyond obvious companies and keywords.
Enough technical curiosity to understand what candidates have built and why their experience matters.
Clear writing, strong judgment, and the ability to earn trust with candidates and demanding hiring managers.
Ability to manage multiple searches and changing priorities while keeping commitments.
Personal ownership of outcomes, including following through, spotting problems early, and improving what is not working.
Ability to work at the El Segundo factory five days a week.

Nice To Haves

Experience building recruiting at an early-stage company.
Experience hiring across mechanical, electrical, embedded software, RF, GNC, or flight test disciplines.
Strong networks in aerospace, defense, or hardware.
Experience creating referral programs, university relationships, or technical events that produced exceptional hires.

Responsibilities

Own recruiting from start to finish, including sourcing, screening, interview coordination, offer management, and closing candidates across engineering, manufacturing, flight operations, and business.
Build targeted talent maps and find candidates through thoughtful outreach, referrals, technical communities, and creative research.
Partner with hiring managers to translate technical needs into clear role requirements, interview plans, and evidence of what strong performance looks like.
Build candidate relationships by understanding individual motivations and communicating the mission, work, and expectations clearly.
Work with leadership on offers, address candidate concerns early, and guide candidates through decisions and relocation.
Maintain accurate records in Greenhouse, keep interviews moving, ensure timely feedback, and build practical systems that save the team time.
Track sourcing effectiveness, interview conversion, offer acceptance, and time to hire; identify bottlenecks and improve the process.
Turn the work happening in the factory and field into compelling job descriptions, outreach, and candidate conversations.

Benefits

Meaningful equity and highly competitive equity grants as part of total compensation.
Top market salary and bonuses.
Health, dental, and vision insurance.
Factory in El Segundo.
Real ownership, real hardware, and real flight.
Small team with massive responsibility.
High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture.
Dream desk setup.
Daily lunch.
Unlimited Celsius.