---
title: 'Founding Recruiter at Icarus'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-recruiter-icarus-el-segundo-hx348vwqw4re'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-11'
---

# Founding Recruiter at Icarus

- **Company:** Icarus
- **Location:** El Segundo, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-11-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-11
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/icarus/jobs/5475662008

## Job description

Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the [Forgotten Frontier](https://henryicarus.substack.com/p/the-forgotten-frontier?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true) and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere. Getting there requires exceptional engineers, technicians, and operators. You will help bring them here.

Mission

Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.

## The role

- As a Founding Recruiter, you will own recruiting from the first outbound message to the signed offer. You’ll work directly with the CEO and hiring managers to understand what we need, find exceptional people, and convince them to build with us. You should love the search: finding the engineer behind an impressive project, getting a response from someone who wasn’t looking, and turning a first conversation into a hire. You’ll build the recruiting systems that help Icarus grow while staying close to the work yourself.

## What You'll own

- Recruiting from start to finish. Source, screen, coordinate interviews, manage offers, and close candidates across engineering, manufacturing, flight operations, and business.
- Outbound sourcing. Build targeted talent maps and reach people through thoughtful outreach, referrals, technical communities, and creative research.
- Hiring manager partnerships. Translate technical needs into clear role requirements, interview plans, and evidence of what great looks like.
- Candidate relationships. Learn what motivates each person, communicate clearly, and help them understand the mission, the work, and the expectations.
- Closing. Work with leadership on offers, address concerns early, and guide candidates through decisions and relocation.
- Recruiting operations. Keep Greenhouse accurate, interviews moving, and feedback timely. Build practical systems that save the team time.
- Results. Track sourcing effectiveness, interview conversion, offer acceptance, and time to hire. Find bottlenecks and fix them.
- Our recruiting story. Turn the work happening in the factory and the field into compelling job descriptions, outreach, and candidate conversations.

## What we're looking for

- 3+ years of recruiting experience with a record of sourcing and closing difficult technical roles.
- Experience recruiting for hardware, aerospace, defense, robotics, manufacturing, or another technically demanding environment.
- Strong sourcing instincts. You know how to find people beyond the 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.
- Comfort managing multiple searches and changing priorities while keeping commitments.
- Personal ownership of outcomes. You follow through, spot problems early, and improve what isn’t working.
- Ability to work at our El Segundo factory five days a week.

Bonus

- Helped build recruiting at an early-stage company.
- Hired across mechanical, electrical, embedded software, RF, GNC, or flight test disciplines.
- Built strong networks in aerospace, defense, or hardware.
- Created referral programs, university relationships, or technical events that produced exceptional hires.

## Why Icarus

- Meaningful equity
- Top market salary and bonuses
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- Factory in El Segundo
- Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
- Small team, massive responsibility
- High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
- Dream desk setup
- Daily lunch
- Unlimited celsius

Hiring process

- Phone screen
- One-on-one with CEO
- Meet the team in-person

US salary range

$130,000 - $170,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are considered part of Icarus' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

## About Icarus

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Icarus builds solar-powered, autonomous stratospheric aircraft (called "birds") that operate above 60,000 feet for weeks at a time, providing persistent intelligence, surveillance, and connectivity.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed VC stage)
- **Headquarters**: El Segundo, California, United States (also has a flight test area in the Mojave Desert)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Henry Kwan (founder & CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Defense & Space Manufacturing / Aerospace
- **Target customers**: Government and defense agencies (ISR, communications), plus commercial sectors such as agriculture, construction, energy, insurance, transportation, and urban planning.
- **Mission/purpose**: "Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere."

## Products & Services
- **[APOLLO](https://www.icarus.one/)**: A fully solar-powered, autonomous aircraft that flies at ~60,000 ft for weeks without landing. It offers persistent wide-area coverage (7,500 km²), ultra-low latency (5–10 ms, fiber-like), direct-to-device high-bandwidth connectivity, and real-time high-resolution sensing. Deployed in hours, reusable and upgradeable. Type: Hardware (UAV) + Service (data/connectivity).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding raised – $500,000 (as of latest Pre-Seed round in Dec 2025)
- **Notable Investors**: Y Combinator (lead investor in latest round), Pioneer Fund, xTech Accelerator, Transpose Platform, Predictive Venture Partners, and others (11+ investors total)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount: 48 employees (as of mid-2026) with +17.6% monthly growth.
  - Active Job Postings: 11, with quarterly growth of +266.7%.
  - First aircraft (APOLLO) successfully flew in 2024 — "no hype, just hardware in the sky."
  - Scaling from R&D to manufacturing and deployment, with a factory in El Segundo.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Stratospheric persistence**: Weeks-long endurance without refueling, unlike satellites (intermittent passes) or drones (limited endurance).
- **Ultra-low latency**: 5–10 ms direct-to-device communication, compared to 25–60 ms for LEO satellites.
- **Weather-immune and threat-resistant**: Operates above weather and most threats, providing continuous coverage.
- **Cost-effective**: Fraction of the cost of satellite-based solutions.
- **Rapid deployment**: Can be airborne in hours, no orbital launch constraints.
- **Full vertical integration**: Designs, manufactures, assembles, and tests everything in-house (L.A. headquarters and Mojave test site).

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling the team across engineering, manufacturing, flight operations, and business.
- Transitioning from prototype to operational deployment (APOLLO in active service).
- Building out a mesh network of stratospheric birds for global persistent coverage.
- Maintaining a "high signal-to-noise" ratio: prioritizing engineers over management, extreme ownership, and rapid iteration.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as an "elite sports team" — high-trust, no-BS, radical transparency, idea meritocracy, extreme ownership. You will work directly with the CEO and own subsystems end-to-end.
- **Work environment**: On-site in El Segundo, CA (engineering, manufacturing, and business nerve center), with frequent field testing in the Mojave Desert (early mornings, hands-on).
- **What you'll do**: Design, build, break, fix, validate, and fly real hardware. No slide decks, no fake projects, minimal meetings.
- **Perks & rewards**:
  - Meaningful equity
  - Top-of-market salary and bonuses
  - Health, dental, and vision insurance
  - Daily lunch and unlimited Celsius
  - Dream desk setup
  - Factory in El Segundo
- **Hiring process**: Technical interview → one-on-one with CEO → meet the team in-person.
- **Open roles**: Manufacturing, Engineering (mechanical, electrical, GNC, RF, software, embedded), Flight Operations, Business Operations, and more.

## Sources
1. [icarus.one](https://www.icarus.one/) – Company homepage, product details
2. [icarus.one/about](https://www.icarus.one/about) – About page, founding story, team, locations
3. [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/icarus) – Careers page, job listings, culture description
4. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/icarusone) – Funding info, investors, headquarters
5. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/icarusindustries) – Employee count, growth, company details, financials

## Other roles at Icarus

- [IT Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/it-systems-engineer-icarus-el-segundo-vnft86nyndnh) — El Segundo, CA
- [Quality Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/quality-engineer-icarus-el-segundo-k897vwqmf330) — El Segundo, CA
- [Purchasing Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/purchasing-coordinator-icarus-el-segundo-ccwcvqy2p9r5) — El Segundo, CA
- [Buyer/Planner, Mechanical & Composites](https://feeny.ai/job/buyer-planner-mechanical-composites-icarus-el-segundo-drrwcbfszthp) — El Segundo, CA
- [Buyer/Planner, Electrical](https://feeny.ai/job/buyer-planner-electrical-icarus-el-segundo-errsfv90dy7t) — El Segundo, CA
- [Head of Supply Chain](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-supply-chain-icarus-el-segundo-4t61c89c0rd1) — El Segundo, CA
- [Regulatory & Airspace Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/regulatory-airspace-lead-icarus-el-segundo-6d16jqbjea0s) — El Segundo, CA
- [Warehouse Associate](https://feeny.ai/job/warehouse-associate-icarus-el-segundo-86s1m029qabj) — El Segundo, CA
- [Logistics Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/logistics-lead-icarus-el-segundo-skdte9rbzyq9) — El Segundo, CA
- [Network Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/network-engineer-icarus-el-segundo-jrjj80p412s3) — El Segundo, CA