Full-Time

Senior Technical Recruiter

Salient Motion

Salient Motion

11-50 employees

Hardware and software electric propulsion systems

Compensation Overview

$145k - $165k/yr

+ Equity

No H1B Sponsorship

Torrance, CA, USA

In Person

The role requires consistent on-site work; the company also has a large headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Category
People & HR (1)
Required Skills
Applicant Tracking Software (ATS)

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Requirements
  • U.S. citizenship or PERM authorization is required due to International Traffic in Arms Regulations compliance.
  • At least 5 years of full-cycle technical recruiting experience, including hiring hardware, mechanical, electrical, robotics, or embedded software engineers.
  • Demonstrated success sourcing and closing passive candidates for hard-to-fill, specialized technical roles.
  • Prior experience operating autonomously, ideally supporting a recruiting function while a manager worked remotely or across multiple sites.
  • Strong presence and sound judgment, with the ability to serve as the go-to recruiting voice with engineering leadership.
  • Ability to operate in a startup environment with high ownership, ambiguity, and limited process, including building new processes as needed.
  • Ability to partner with technical hiring managers, translate engineering requirements into sourcing strategies, and act as a trusted advisor.
  • Excellent communication and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple searches simultaneously and prioritize under a high-growth hiring load.
  • Experience with applicant tracking systems such as Greenhouse, Lever, or Ashby, and modern sourcing tools.
  • Willingness and ability to work consistently on-site.
Responsibilities
  • Own full-cycle recruiting for critical and complex requisitions, primarily core engineering roles across hardware, embedded and firmware, controls, mechanical design, robotics, and software engineering.
  • Take on a significant share of the team's recruiting load and add capacity as the company scales.
  • Serve as the senior on-site recruiting point of contact and run day-to-day recruiting operations independently.
  • Partner directly with engineering leadership to scope roles, define hiring criteria, and build role-specific sourcing strategies.
  • Proactively source and engage passive candidates in aerospace, defense, robotics, and advanced motion and controls, building talent pipelines in a niche, high-demand field.
  • Manage the candidate experience end-to-end, including screening, interview coordination, feedback loops, offer negotiation, and closing.
  • Build and refine hiring processes, interview scorecards, and structured interview loops to support rapid headcount growth.
  • Track and report pipeline health, time-to-fill, and hiring funnel metrics, proactively flagging risks and bottlenecks.
  • Navigate defense-adjacent hiring compliance considerations, including U.S. person requirements and export-control awareness, in partnership with Legal and People.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience recruiting in aerospace, defense, robotics, automotive, or other hardware-intensive industries.

Salient Motion builds advanced electric propulsion and actuation systems for aerospace, robotics, drones, and mobility. It combines hardware and software to simplify and improve propulsion performance, with products like motor controllers and propulsion systems that are easy to integrate and come with user-friendly validation software. The company uses proprietary motor control schemes that minimize debugging, and it manufactures using exclusively domestic parts and PCB fabrication in California to ensure fast delivery and high quality. This differentiates Salient Motion from competitors by offering an end-to-end, domestically produced solution with straightforward software tools and reliable performance. The goal is to help engineers and developers deploy dependable, efficient propulsion systems quickly and with less integration effort.

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

Early VC

Total Funding

$12M

Headquarters

Irvine, California

Founded

2022

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Reuters reported Salient Motion won its first production contract on February 25, 2026.
  • Aviointeriors plans qualification-ready seat actuation in roughly one year, validating Salient Motion's platform.
  • The company raised $12 million by 2024, funding factory buildout and certification work.

What critics are saying

  • Reuters said the Aviointeriors deal covers only several hundred seats starting late 2026.
  • Anduril sued Salient Motion in 2023 over trade secrets; settlement in 2024 damaged credibility.
  • If Boeing certification slips in 2026, Salient Motion loses its entire commercialization narrative.

What makes Salient Motion unique

  • Salient Motion reuses certified hardware and software, compressing aerospace certification from years to months.
  • Boeing partnered in January 2026 to certify modular actuators for commercial airliners.
  • The company manufactures in California, promising domestic supply chain control and faster delivery.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Unlimited Paid Time Off

Hybrid Work Options

401(k) Retirement Plan

Company Equity

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

-6%

1 year growth

-2%

2 year growth

-13%
D2P Magazine
Mar 31st, 2026
By collaborating with OEM partners, Salient Motion aims to transform aircraft systems manufacturing.

By collaborating with OEM partners, Salient Motion aims to transform aircraft systems manufacturing. The startup's focus is on building rapidly certifiable systems to redefine the economics of aerospace manufacturing. TORRANCE, Calif. - Aerospace and defense component supplier Salient Motion is an aerospace technology company focused on developing modular, software-driven motion control systems that power critical actuation and power electronics across commercial and defense platforms. The company's stated mission is to modernize aerospace manufacturing by reducing certification barriers, increasing reliability, and enabling faster deployment of advanced technologies. Recently, Salient Motion reported that it developed motion control systems for commercial aircraft that can achieve certification in months rather than years. The development marks "a significant departure from traditional aerospace development timelines," the company said in a release. Salient Motion develops modular, software-driven motion control systems that reuse certified hardware and software to cut costs, simplify integration and speed aerospace certification. (Image: Salient Motion/Business Wire) Salient Motion is working with Boeing to advance actuation systems - the mechanisms behind aircraft functions ranging from passenger seating to cargo handling - using a modular platform that reuses certified components across programs. The company's technology replaces decades-old, single-use hardware architectures with a reconfigurable platform that's built more like a modern software stack - reusable, upgradable, and fast to certify. Founded in 2022, the company said it is moving through the certification process at a pace unusual for the aerospace industry. "In aerospace, certification costs and timelines have always been the biggest drag on innovation," said Vishaal Mali, Salient Motion's co-founder and CEO, in the release. "By modularizing hardware and reusing certified software across systems, we're compressing development timelines and cutting those costs dramatically." The company's approach has attracted investment from AE Ventures, reflecting growing market interest in startups that can accelerate aerospace digital transformation. Unlike conventional supplier relationships, Salient Motion's model treats OEMs as development partners - sharing R&D investment and aftermarket revenue while reducing non-recurring engineering costs for each new program. "Our modular platform lets aerospace evolve the way software does," Mali said. "Certify once, deploy everywhere. That's the leverage modern aviation has been missing." New economics of innovation According to Salient Motion, the aerospace industry has long been trapped by single-source suppliers and certification cycles that push costs to the breaking point. The company's modular platform breaks that pattern. By reusing previously certified hardware and software across aircraft programs, the company stated that it can develop and qualify new systems in a fraction of the time, dramatically lowering the cost of getting components to market. Standardized digital interfaces further simplify integration, reducing engineering overhead and shortening production timelines. "The result is a new era in aerospace manufacturing - one where certification accelerates, costs decline, and innovation breaks free from the limits of legacy suppliers," the release said. "We are focused on components where we can drive meaningful performance and cost improvements with our motion control technology," said Mali. "By focusing on building cost-effective, certifiable systems for our OEM and airline partners, we're able to provide a second source more efficiently than ever before." Beyond actuation: the road ahead Salient Motion's broader mission is to replace legacy components across commercial aviation, defense, and space applications. The company's modular, software-driven platform is designed to extend beyond actuation into a wide range of aircraft systems. According to Salient Motion, this positions the company as "a comprehensive technology partner capable of transforming multiple aspects of the aerospace industry."

Business Wire
Feb 25th, 2026
Salient Motion partners with Aviointeriors to deliver certifiable seat actuation for Allegra business class in under a year

Salient Motion has partnered with Italian aircraft cabin interiors manufacturer Aviointeriors to supply seat actuation control systems for the Allegra business class seating programme. The collaboration aims to deliver a qualification-ready actuation system in approximately one year using Salient Motion's rapid certification process. The partnership addresses supply constraints in the aircraft seating market, where limited legacy suppliers and lengthy development cycles have delayed deliveries. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg previously cited seat certification delays as a bottleneck for 787 Dreamliner deliveries. Founded in 2022, Salient Motion developed the system from concept to qualification-ready in under 12 months using modular, software-driven architecture. The system will support Aviointeriors' Allegra platform across multiple aircraft types including Airbus A330, Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A321, offering airlines faster deployment and reduced development risk.

Silicon Legal Strategy
Oct 2nd, 2024
SLS Client Hummingbird Ventures Joins Salient Motion's $4M Seed Round

SLS client Hummingbird Ventures joins Salient Motion's $4M seed round.

FinSMEs
Oct 1st, 2024
Salient Motion Raises $12M in Total Funding

Salient Motion, a Culver City, CA-based aerospace and defense component supplier, raised $12M in total funding.

Citybiz
Oct 1st, 2024
Salient Motion Raises $12 Million Led by Cantos Ventures

CULVER CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Salient Motion, an aerospace and defense component supplier, today announced it has closed $12 million in total... Read More