---
title: 'People Operations Generalist at Salient Motion'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/people-operations-generalist-salient-motion-torrance-21ejkdqd2ggd'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# People Operations Generalist at Salient Motion

- **Company:** Salient Motion
- **Location:** Torrance, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-08-31
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/salientmotion/jobs/5411483008

## Job description

## Who We Are

Salient Motion designs, manufactures, and supports advanced motion control and actuation systems for aerospace, defense, and robotics applications. We're a fast-growing, venture-backed startup building the next generation of intelligent motion systems, partnering directly with leading organizations to bring new technology from concept to deployment.

## About the Role

This is the first dedicated People Ops hire at Salient Motion. You are coming in at a moment when the company is scaling fast enough that we need someone who can build and own the operational infrastructure that keeps everything running: onboarding, compliance, HRIS, payroll and benefits (and more). You will also support recruiting operations as we build out the talent function, which means you will touch the full employee lifecycle from candidate to day one and beyond.

A couple other things:

- We are open to relocating you
- We have great benefits
- We are well funded, and generating revenue
- We just moved into a new large HQ in Hawthorne, CA, with presence still in Torrance, CA
- We need folks onsite, but provide a lot of flexibilty

What you'll do:

People Operations

- HRIS administration in Rippling: employee records, workflows, onboarding automation, and data integrity
- Onboarding end to end: pre-boarding, Day 1 coordination, and 30/60/90 day check-ins in partnership with managers
- Benefits administration: open enrollment, carrier coordination, employee questions, and day-to-day benefits support
- Compliance: I-9 management, employment law adherence (California and federal), required policy maintenance, and ITAR documentation at offer stage
- Visa and immigration coordination in partnership with outside counsel: includes preparing job descriptions and role documentation for petition support, coordinating the recruiting process to meet visa timeline requirements, managing case tracking and document collection, and serving as the internal point of contact between employees, managers, and counsel throughout the process
- Payroll support: first point of contact for employee questions and discrepancies related to payroll. You are not running payroll, but you are making sure issues get resolved and managers are approving timesheets before processing deadlines
- Culture and engagement: own the cadence of pulse surveys and engagement check-ins, synthesize results into actionable insights for the Head of People and leadership, and serve as a visible, approachable presence on the floor. You are the day-to-day read on how the team is doing, what is working, and what is not
- Company policy ownership: employee handbook, PTO policy, code of conduct, and required state and federal postings

Recruiting Support

- Job posting management: publish and maintain open roles on the Salient Motion careers page and LinkedIn, keep postings current, and ensure all listings include required ITAR and location language
- Interview coordination: schedule 1:1 interviews across all active reqs and coordinate post-interview roundtable discussions where interviewers align on candidate feedback before a decision is made
- Candidate experience: serve as the primary point of contact and host for all onsite candidates. You are the first face they see when they walk in and the last when they leave. Own everything in between: greeting, logistics, escorting between interviews, and making sure the day runs on time and feels organized. The candidate experience is a direct reflection of who we are as a company
- Offer routing: manage the offer workflow end to end in Greenhouse: routing for approval, generating offer letters, managing DocuSign, and tracking acceptance
- Juicebox administration: support the Recruiting team in managing outreach agent briefs, monitoring sequence performance, and keeping candidate data clean
- Greenhouse hygiene: stage updates, candidate disposition, background check coordination via Checkr, and pipeline reporting support

What you need:

Experience matters less than how you operate. Here is what we actually value in this role.

- You can hold a lot at once. This role lives at the intersection of People Ops and recruiting, and the context switches constantly. One hour you are resolving a payroll discrepancy, the next you are hosting a candidate onsite, the next you are updating a job posting. You do not drop things when the day changes direction.
- You learn fast and go deep. You do not need to be an employment lawyer to understand California compliance, but you are not afraid to dig in until you do. Same with systems. Rippling, Greenhouse, Juicebox: you get your hands on a tool and you master it. You do not stay at the surface level
- You move before you are asked. You see around corners. You spot the timesheet that has not been approved before payroll closes, the compliance requirement coming before it becomes a problem, the candidate who has been waiting too long for a follow-up. You bring solutions, not just observations. This is core to who we are as a company and we expect it from everyone on the team.
- 3-5 years in a People Ops, HR Generalist, or HR Coordinator role is a reasonable baseline.
- ITAR-eligible (U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident) and onsite in Hawthorne are both required.
- Rippling, Greenhouse, Juicebox, and or other (HR/Recruiting tools) experience are a strong plus.

What we have to offer:

We are a small, technical team building hardware that flies. The people who thrive here are builders: people who take ownership, move without waiting to be asked, and hold a high bar for their own work. We also care deeply about what it feels like to work here. This role has a real hand in shaping that. If that sounds like you, we want to talk.

- Salary Range: $100,000-$130,000, plus equity and benefits at a well-funded, fast-moving startup
- Mission-driven work at the intersection of aerospace, defense, and robotics innovation
- Exceptional healthcare benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision) - Medical is 100% covered by the company
- 2x salary Life Insurance - 100% covered by the company
- Flexible PTO Policy
- 401K
- More to come!

## About Salient Motion

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Salient Motion designs and manufactures critical electromechanical actuation systems for commercial aviation and defense, replacing legacy supply chains with modular, software-defined motion control.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: Torrance, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Founders**: Vishaal Mali (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing, Defense
- **Target Customers**: OEMs (e.g., Boeing), MROs, and defense contractors for commercial airliners and military platforms (B2B, Enterprise)
- **Mission**: To change the paradigm of legacy aerospace and defense supply chains, unlocking a new era of speed, innovation, and possibility.

## Products & Services
- **Critical Actuation Systems**: Advanced electromechanical actuators (linear and rotary) for flight control, landing gear, and other mission-critical functions on commercial and military aircraft.
- **Software-First Architecture**: A modular, software-defined actuation platform that decouples control logic from hardware. Core motor control software is certified to DO-178C standards as a reusable library, enabling rapid configuration and validation across platforms.
- **Certification Services**: Certification-centric engineering built from day one, aiming for up to 10x reductions in cost and lead time for certifiable products.
- **Support & Sustainment**: Direct, fast, and personal support for integration, troubleshooting, and sustainment of actuation systems.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding of **$4.0M** (Seed round led by Cantos VC in October 2024, with participation from AE Ventures and Ian Rountree; a Pre-Seed round occurred in November 2022)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Cantos (Lead), AE Ventures, Ian Rountree. Key customer/partner: **Boeing** (collaborating on certifying modular actuators for commercial airliners).
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount of ~30 employees with +15.2% monthly growth; talent sourced from Anduril Industries, Boeing, Virgin Galactic, and other top aerospace/defense firms; active job postings increasing +200% month-over-month; expansion to a second office in Irvine, CA.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Software-First Modularity**: Their core differentiator is a software-defined architecture that is certified as a reusable library (DO-178C). This allows for rapid, low-cost configuration for different aircraft platforms, offering a 10x improvement in lead time and cost over legacy suppliers.
- **Vertically Integrated Supply Chain**: Streamlined engineering workflows and vertically integrated partnerships enable delivery of actuator systems in weeks, not quarters.
- **Certification-First Approach**: All systems are designed with certification in mind from day one, drastically reducing the time and cost to achieve airworthiness.
- **Legacy Disruption**: They offer a direct alternative to high-cost, slow-moving legacy OEM suppliers, providing certified solutions without overhead markup.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale Production**: Moving from design and prototyping to manufacturing and delivery at scale, as evidenced by hiring for Senior Manufacturing Engineer and Quality Manager roles.
- **Expand Customer Base**: Deepening the partnership with Boeing while expanding to other commercial and defense OEMs.
- **Domestic Supply Chain**: Developing motors and inverters using domestic resources to meet national security imperatives.
- **Platform Development**: Refining their core "electric motion operating system," including standalone inverters, web-based configuration platforms, and performant motors.

## Why Work Here
- **High-Impact Work**: Employees solve some of the hardest motion control challenges in aerospace and defense, with work that directly impacts millions of daily passengers.
- **Culture**: Described as a high-velocity environment emphasizing "Extreme Entrepreneurship," "Execution Over Excuses," and "Mastery Over Ego." The culture values ownership, creativity, and a relentless focus on execution.
- **Strong Talent Pool**: Team includes veterans from Anduril, Boeing, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX, providing a steep learning curve and high-performance peer group.
- **Work Policy**: **In-Office** (Torrance, CA and Irvine, CA). The company explicitly values in-person collaboration.
- **Growth Trajectory**: Early-stage (Seed) with rapid headcount growth, offering significant upside and career acceleration for early employees.

## Sources
1. [salientmotion.com](https://salientmotion.com/)
2. [salientmotion.com](https://salientmotion.com/careers)
3. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/salient-motion)
4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/salient-motion)

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