01 — MethodologyHow to read these numbersThe cohort is 19 U.S.-headquartered companies that build physical defense, space or advanced-manufacturing hardware and post their openings on a public applicant-tracking board: Anduril, SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Shield AI, Relativity Space, Saronic, Vast, True Anomaly, Hadrian, Skydio, CHAOS Industries, Mach Industries, Ursa Major, Divergent, Varda, Neros, Hermeus, Stoke Space and Epirus. Fourteen boards run on Greenhouse, two on Lever (Shield AI, Hermeus) and three on Ashby (Saronic, Hadrian, Skydio). We read every posting title and location through each board’s public API on 2026-09-15 and counted 7,806 open requisitions.Each title was sorted into one of 13 role families by keyword rules: hardware, electrical, RF and mechanical design; software, autonomy and ML; production technicians and trades; quality, test and NDT; manufacturing engineering; supply chain, sourcing and logistics; program, product and integration management; systems, safety and mission; facilities, EHS, construction and real estate; production operations leadership; G&A; intern and early career; and Other. Other is the catch-all for titles the rules could not place (1,556 reqs, 19.9%) and is deliberately excluded from the largest-family stat above. Metro is the first city on the posting; multi-site postings are counted once, in the first-listed city.Read the numbers as a snapshot of demand signals, not headcount. A requisition can be evergreen, duplicated across sites, or filled and left open. Boards also differ in granularity: SpaceX posts many shift-specific technician roles individually, while smaller companies post one role per discipline. The pull date on every figure is the date that matters. Company descriptions are one sentence each, taken from the company’s own site or board boilerplate, with no ranking implied by order.Independent guide — public job-board dataiRecruit.co is an independent recruiting firm. We are not affiliated with any of these employers and do not recruit on their behalf. Every role discussed here is posted on the employer’s own careers site; applying there is the only way to be considered for those positions. Counts below come from each company’s public job board (Greenhouse, Ashby or Lever), pulled 2026-09-15, and change daily.02 — At a glanceThe benchmarks at a glanceThe whole guide in one screen. Each row jumps to the full section.01Two boards are 61% of the marketSpaceX (2,452) and Anduril (2,313) together post 4,765 of 7,806 reqs. The other 17 companies combined post 3,041. Public boards, pulled 2026-09-15.4,765 reqs02Hardware outnumbers softwareHardware, electrical, RF and mechanical design (1,140) edges software, autonomy and ML (1,054), and the four physical families together (design, manufacturing engineering, production trades, quality) are 37.1% of the cohort.37% physical03Southern California is the center of gravityCosta Mesa, Long Beach, Hawthorne, Torrance, Los Angeles, El Segundo, Irvine, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach and San Diego sum to 3,561 reqs, 45.6% of everything posted.3,561 reqs04Texas is a SpaceX story so farBastrop (499), Starbase (338) and McGregor (74) are SpaceX sites; Austin (172) is mostly Saronic (133 reqs) with SpaceX (37) behind it, and Dallas (108) is almost all Shield AI. Anduril’s Ohio postings appear under Ashville, not Texas.1,195 TX05Factory-layer roles are a quarter of the boardManufacturing engineering, quality and test, supply chain, program management and production leadership add up to 1,969 reqs, 25.2%, and that is the layer where construction and industrial recruiters already have candidate density.1,969 reqsTwo anchor numbers. The median board in this cohort has 133 open reqs (Skydio), so the typical defense-tech employer is hiring in the low hundreds, not the thousands; the mega boards distort every average. And 748 production technician and trades reqs are open across the 19 boards, more than either quality or manufacturing engineering, which is the clearest signal that the constraint in reindustrialization is hands on the floor as much as engineers at desks.
03 — Benchmarksthe six role families that carry the boardSix families cover 4,413 of the 7,806 reqs (56.5%). The remaining 3,393 are G&A (632), program and product management (392), systems and mission (354), facilities and EHS (284), production leadership (106), interns (69) and the unclassified Other bucket (1,556). Public boards, pulled 2026-09-15.1,140hardware, electrical, RF and mechanical designDesign engineers for airframes, structures, avionics, RF front ends, power electronics, propulsion and mechanisms. Anduril (266), SpaceX (303) and Rocket Lab (132) post the most; Relativity (87), Shield AI (75) and True Anomaly (43) follow. The work is CAD, analysis, test correlation and design-for-manufacture on hardware that ships in months, not decades.1,054software, autonomy and MLFlight software, perception, autonomy stacks, simulation, embedded firmware and the web and data tooling behind them. Anduril (379) and SpaceX (319) dominate; Shield AI (82), True Anomaly (40) and Rocket Lab (38) are the next tier. Most postings ask for C++ or Rust plus a hardware-in-the-loop mindset rather than pure cloud experience.748production technicians and tradesAssembly, composite layup, welders, machinists, avionics and harness technicians, and additive-manufacturing operators, frequently on second or third shift. SpaceX (338) alone is 45% of the family; Anduril (121), Relativity (67), Rocket Lab (65) and Vast (27) follow. This is the family where the boards most resemble a heavy-industrial staffing problem.536quality, test and NDTQuality engineers, inspectors, NDT technicians, test engineers and mission-assurance staff. Anduril (205) and SpaceX (145) lead; Shield AI (25), Vast (22) and Rocket Lab (21) round out the top five. AS9100 and NADCAP language appears across the family, and supplier-quality roles are a growing subset as the cohort outsources machined and cast parts.471manufacturing engineeringProcess, industrial, tooling, automation and additive-manufacturing engineers who turn a design into a repeatable line. Anduril (176) posts more than SpaceX (87), followed by Rocket Lab (35), Relativity (34) and Hadrian (24). The titles read like an automotive or aerospace tier-one plant, which is the talent pool most of these postings are quietly drawing from.464supply chain, sourcing and logisticsBuyers, strategic sourcing managers, planners, supplier development and logistics coordinators. Anduril (198) and SpaceX (151) are 75% of the family; Relativity (18), Rocket Lab (17) and Shield AI (13) follow. Demand concentrates where a company has moved from prototype to rate production and must qualify hundreds of suppliers at once.Sources: public Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby job boards for the 19 named companies, pulled 2026-09-15 via each platform’s public API; family classification by iRecruit keyword rules on posting titles; counts change daily.why the family counts understate physical rolesThe Other bucket (1,556 reqs) is not random. Spot-reading it turns up SpaceX silicon-engineering titles (ASIC, RTL, physical design and DFT engineers), research scientists, inventory and shipping associates, temporary hospitality and site-services staff, talent sourcers and coordinator, specialist and lead titles with no discipline word, plus a handful of site-coded titles such as Starbase or Neutron. Some of those are production, test or integration roles the rules missed, so the true physical share of the cohort is probably somewhat above the 37.1% the classified families show. Treat the family numbers as floors, not ceilings, and expect the unclassified share to fall as the monthly refresh tightens the rules. 04 — Cost driversthe six metros with the deepest boardsMore than 150 distinct first-listed locations appear in the cohort; the top six hold 3,834 reqs, 49.1% of the total. Four of the six are single-employer sites, which is the structural fact of this market: outside Southern California, a defense-tech metro is usually one company’s factory. Public boards, pulled 2026-09-15.1,198Costa Mesa, CaliforniaAnduril’s headquarters and the largest single metro in the cohort at 15.3% of all reqs; every Costa Mesa posting is Anduril’s. Design, software, quality, supply chain and program roles all cluster here, with Irvine (95 Anduril reqs) and Santa Ana (103) as spillover.751Long Beach, CaliforniaThe one true multi-employer cluster: Relativity Space (285), Rocket Lab (238), Vast (178) and True Anomaly (34) all post here, with Divergent (13) behind them. Launch-vehicle structures, propulsion, additive manufacturing and space-station integration compete for the same technicians and manufacturing engineers within a few miles.691Hawthorne, CaliforniaSpaceX’s headquarters and Falcon and Dragon production site; 670 of the 691 postings are SpaceX, with CHAOS Industries and Vast posting a handful nearby. The board here skews to production technicians, quality inspectors and manufacturing engineers on rotating shifts.499Bastrop, TexasSpaceX’s Starlink manufacturing and Starlink-related campus east of Austin; all 499 postings are SpaceX. High-volume electronics assembly, test, facilities and construction titles dominate, making Bastrop the most factory-shaped metro in the set.357Redmond, WashingtonSpaceX’s Starlink satellite design and production site; all 357 postings are SpaceX. Satellite bus, payload, RF and phased-array design roles sit alongside a production and test floor, and the metro competes directly with Seattle-area aerospace and software employers for the same people.338Starbase, TexasSpaceX’s Starship build and launch site in Cameron County; all 338 postings are SpaceX. Structures, welding, propulsion test, launch operations and a large facilities and construction contingent, reflecting a campus that is still being built while it operates.Below the top six, the map gets more plural. Washington, D.C. (220) is Anduril (90), Shield AI (61), SpaceX (47) and CHAOS Industries (13) government-facing roles; Torrance (196) is Divergent, Neros and Epirus; Los Angeles (185) is Hadrian and Hermeus; El Segundo (173) is Varda and CHAOS Industries; Austin (172) is Saronic; Seattle (161) is Shield AI and Anduril. Cape Canaveral (148), Denver (147, True Anomaly), Anduril’s Ashville postings (134) and Atlanta (75, Anduril and Hermeus) come next; another 15 locations, from Irvine (117), Dallas (108, Shield AI) and Auckland (107, Rocket Lab) down to Boston, San Diego and London (50 to 51), post between 50 and 120 reqs each. Public boards, pulled 2026-09-15. 05 — Variationthe 19 employers by board sizeBoard size is the most honest proxy for hiring velocity a public source offers. Six tiers below, each with the companies’ own one-sentence descriptions of what they build. Order within a tier is by req count. Public boards, pulled 2026-09-15.mega boards4,765 reqs, 2 companiesSpaceX (2,452) designs, manufactures and launches rockets and spacecraft. Anduril (2,313) describes its work as transforming U.S. defense capabilities with advanced technology. Together they are 61% of the cohort and post across every family and more than a dozen metros.scaled boards1,339 reqs, 3 companiesRocket Lab (510) describes itself as an end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft and subsystems. Shield AI (491) builds autonomous aircraft platforms and AI flight-control software. Relativity Space (338) builds reusable rockets for scientific, exploration and commercial launch. Each runs multi-site boards in the hundreds.growth boards595 reqs, 3 companiesSaronic (209) manufactures autonomous vessels for defense and commercial maritime use. Vast (203) develops commercial space stations and related infrastructure. True Anomaly (183) designs and builds spacecraft, software and payloads for space defense. All three are standing up production while still hiring the design team.factory-first boards408 reqs, 3 companiesHadrian (147) manufactures precision components in factories run on its own automation software. Skydio (133) manufactures autonomous drones and software for public-safety, defense, security, inspection and mapping use. CHAOS Industries (128) builds radar, sensing and electronic-effects systems for air, land and sea defense on its Coherent Distributed Networks architecture. Manufacturing and quality titles are a visibly larger share here.emerging boards, propulsion and airframes411 reqs, 4 companiesMach Industries (115) develops and manufactures aerospace and defense systems including unmanned aircraft and munitions. Ursa Major (108) manufactures propulsion for hypersonics, solid rocket motors and space mobility using additive manufacturing. Divergent (96) runs an integrated engineering and manufacturing platform supplying automotive OEMs and U.S. aerospace and defense companies. Varda (92) processes materials in orbit and returns them to Earth.emerging boards, systems and effects288 reqs, 4 companiesNeros (89) manufactures tactical one-way unmanned aerial systems and ground control stations for military use. Hermeus (87) develops high-speed aircraft and propulsion for military applications. Stoke Space (69) develops Nova, a fully reusable two-stage rocket. Epirus (43) manufactures high-power microwave systems for counter-drone defense. Boards this size turn over quickly; a single program award can double them.Two things the tiers make plain. First, 14 of the 19 employers are hiring in the 43 to 209 range, so most defense-tech hiring is small-board hiring where one requisition is a meaningful share of the company. Second, the size gap between tier one and tier two is roughly 5x (SpaceX at 2,452 versus Rocket Lab at 510), which means a candidate comparing offers is often comparing a rate-production employer with a still-prototyping one, and the day-to-day work differs accordingly. 06 — Trendwhat the board mix says about the labor marketThe cohort is a manufacturing labor market wearing a software company’s vocabulary. Add the four physical families (design 1,140, production trades 748, quality 536, manufacturing engineering 471) and you get 2,895 reqs, 37.1% of the board; add supply chain (464), production leadership (106) and facilities, EHS and construction (284) and the make-and-build share reaches 48.0%. Software, autonomy and ML, the family that gets the press, is 13.5%. Whoever fills these boards is competing with aerospace primes, automotive tier ones and industrial construction for the same welders, machinists, quality engineers and process engineers.Geography compounds it. Southern California holds 45.6% of the cohort, and the Long Beach cluster alone has four employers drawing from one commuting shed for launch-vehicle technicians and manufacturing engineers. The single-employer metros (Bastrop, Starbase, Redmond, Costa Mesa, Ashville) face the opposite problem: no local pool to poach from, so relocation, training pipelines and construction-adjacent trades become the sourcing plan. The 284 facilities, EHS, construction and real-estate reqs (SpaceX 187, Anduril 32, Rocket Lab 11) are the tell that several of these campuses are still being built.This is the first monthly pull, so there is no prior snapshot to compare against yet; growth claims about the boards are not supportable from this data and we do not make them. What the mix does support: the binding constraint on reindustrialization in 2026 is not capital or software talent, it is the factory layer of manufacturing engineering, quality, supply chain and production leadership (1,969 reqs, 25.2%) plus the trades beneath it. The next monthly pull will add a trend line. 07 — Workforcewhere iRecruit fits, honestlyWe do not recruit for any company on this page, and nothing here is a path to those roles; the employers’ own boards are. Where iRecruit is relevant is the factory and campus layer that this cohort shares with the industrial construction and manufacturing employers we already serve: facilities managers and EHS specialists for campuses that are still being built, superintendents and project managers for the build itself, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, supplier quality engineers and supply chain managers. Those are the 1,969 factory-layer reqs plus the 284 facilities and construction reqs above, and they are the same titles a semiconductor fab, a battery plant or a data center campus posts.iRecruit is assembling its network of facilities, EHS, construction, manufacturing engineering, quality and supply chain talent for defense-tech and advanced-manufacturing employers, project engineer through executive, and building candidate density in the Southern California, Texas and Puget Sound metros this map identifies ahead of demand. Employers standing up a plant or campus in one of those metros can see how that works on our aerospace and defense manufacturing and manufacturing pages. Candidates in those disciplines can join the talent network below; it is a network for employers we work with, not a route into the boards mapped here.For the hiring side of this market, see the Aerospace & Defense Manufacturing practice. 08 — FAQFrequently asked questions Is iRecruit affiliated with any of these companies+No. iRecruit.co is an independent recruiting firm with no affiliation to any of the 19 employers named here and does not recruit on their behalf. Every role counted on this page is posted on the employer’s own careers site, and applying there is the only way to be considered for it.How were these counts produced+By reading each company’s public job board (Greenhouse, Lever or Ashby) through the platform’s public API on 2026-09-15 and counting open requisitions by title and first-listed location. Titles were sorted into 13 role families by keyword rules. Counts are refreshed monthly from the public boards and change daily in between.Which defense tech companies are hiring the most+By open requisitions on 2026-09-15: SpaceX (2,452), Anduril (2,313), Rocket Lab (510), Shield AI (491) and Relativity Space (338). Those five hold 78% of the cohort; the other 14 companies post between 43 and 209 reqs each.What kinds of defense tech jobs are most common+Hardware, electrical, RF and mechanical design (1,140), then software, autonomy and ML (1,054), production technicians and trades (748), quality and test (536), manufacturing engineering (471) and supply chain (464). Physical and factory-layer roles together outnumber software roughly three to one.Where are defense tech startups hiring+Southern California first: Costa Mesa (1,198), Long Beach (751), Hawthorne (691), Torrance (196), Los Angeles (185) and El Segundo (173) sum to well over 3,000 reqs. Texas follows through Bastrop (499), Starbase (338) and Austin (172), then Redmond and Seattle in Washington state (518 combined) and Washington, D.C. (220). talent network, not an applicationJoin iRecruit’s talent network for similar roles at defense-tech and advanced-manufacturing employers we do work with. This is not an application to any employer named on this page. iRecruit is building its network of facilities, EHS, construction, manufacturing engineering, quality and supply chain talent, project engineer through executive, ahead of demand in the metros this map identifies.Scope a search →Candidates — register with us →
