Staff Recruiter, Engineering at Firestorm in San Diego, CA

Job description

Firestorm is seeking a highly experienced Staff Recruiter, Engineering to serve as a technical recruiting expert and lead some of the company's most complex, specialized, and business-critical engineering searches. You are a technical recruiter with deep expertise identifying, engaging, and attracting highly specialized engineering talent, particularly across electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, avionics, hardware, and related technical engineering disciplines, including searches at the Senior, Staff, and other highly specialized levels. You will operate as a trusted talent advisor to engineering leadership, bringing both recruiting expertise and a strong understanding of highly technical talent markets. You will partner directly with engineering executives, technical leaders, and hiring managers to understand complex technical requirements, translate those requirements into targeted talent strategies, and identify exceptional engineers within highly competitive and often narrow talent pools. At the Staff level, you will operate with significant autonomy and influence. You will help define talent markets, refine hiring profiles, map competitors and adjacent industries, build long-term technical talent pipelines, and advise leadership on where and how Firestorm can find the engineering capabilities required to scale. What You'll Do Own Firestorm's most complex, niche, and high-priority engineering searches, with particular emphasis on electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, avionics, hardware, and related technical disciplines. Recruit highly specialized engineering talent at the Senior, Staff, and other critical levels across multiple engineering functions. Develop a deep understanding of Firestorm's technology, products, engineering organization, and technical roadmap to effectively identify and engage specialized talent. Partner directly with engineering executives and technical leaders to translate complex technical requirements into targeted recruiting and sourcing strategies. Serve as a technical recruiting subject-matter expert, helping hiring leaders distinguish between required capabilities, transferable expertise, and skills that can be developed after hire. Conduct sophisticated talent mapping and market intelligence across aerospace, defense, autonomous systems, robotics, advanced manufacturing, electronics, and adjacent technology industries. Build targeted talent maps around competitors, research organizations, technical communities, universities, programs, products, and specialized engineering domains. Identify and engage highly qualified passive candidates who may not be accessible through traditional recruiting channels. Develop creative sourcing strategies using advanced Boolean search, technical communities, professional networks, research publications, patents, conferences, referrals, competitive intelligence, and direct outreach. Build and maintain strategic pipelines of engineering talent for current and anticipated workforce needs rather than recruiting exclusively against open requisitions. Develop credibility with technical candidates by understanding engineering terminology, technologies, career paths, and distinctions between specialized engineering disciplines. Advise leadership on talent availability, competitive landscapes, compensation considerations, geographic constraints, and other factors affecting specialized engineering hiring. Use recruiting data and market intelligence to identify pipeline risks, sourcing challenges, and opportunities and recommend adjustments to hiring strategy. Deliver a highly personalized and compelling candidate experience capable of attracting sought-after engineers with multiple competitive opportunities. Partner with People, Compensation, and leadership teams on leveling, compensation strategy, offer development, and closing strategies for critical hires. Help establish scalable technical recruiting practices, sourcing methodolo