--- title: 'Wire Harness Design Engineer at Salient Motion' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/wire-harness-design-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-6vhw48j56926' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-13' --- # Wire Harness Design Engineer at Salient Motion - **Company:** Salient Motion - **Location:** Hawthorne, CA - **Posted:** 2026-06-25 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-13 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/salientmotion/jobs/5281444008 ## Job description **Applicants must be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Permanent Residents (Green Card holders) to meet customer and regulatory requirements** ## Who We Are We are pioneering modular motion technologies to power the next generation of innovation for Industrial, Aerospace and Defense. If you're excited about disrupting legacy industries, and passionate about building the financial infrastructure behind cutting-edge hardware, let's chat! We are at the forefront of innovation, crafting exclusive motion control components that propel the industrial, aerospace, and defense sectors into the future. A couple other things: - We offer a lot of autonomy - We like to run lean for impact - We have great benefits - We are well funded, and already generating revenue - We are located in beautiful Hawthorne, CA and just moved into a new large hangar facility What you'll do: This engineer will own electrical interconnect design across our actuation product lines, with primary focus on our production aerospace power electronics and actuation systems. This role bridges design, qualification, and production. You will perform harness design on complex programs end-to-end, author functional test procedures, support qualification testing, and work with suppliers to drive integration and first article inspection. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who wants to work on full-stack hardware in a fast-moving environment with potential customer-facing opportunities. You will work closely with our electrical hardware engineering, motor control, and mechanical engineering teams, and will interface directly with seat OEM customers during ITCM and with DERs during qualification and certification. - Perform wire harness design for aerospace actuation systems on complex programs, from schematic through manufacturing release. - Develop and maintain harness documentation including schematics, wire lists, drawings, and bills of material. - Author functional test procedures for harness assemblies and integrated systems. - Support qualification testing, including DO-160 environmental, MIL-STD-461 EMI/EMC, and program-specific qualification plans. - Work with suppliers to oversee initial build, first article inspection (AS9102), and production readiness. - Own supplier technical qualification and ongoing supplier engineering support for harness assemblies. - Collaborate with DERs during qualification and certification activities. - Partner with motor control, firmware, and mechanical engineering teams to ensure harness design integrates cleanly with the broader system. - Drive design for manufacturability, cost, and reliability across the harness portfolio. - Up to 35% travel (domestic/international customer and supplier sites). What you need: - Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering Technology, or related engineering field. Equivalent professional experience considered in lieu of degree. - Minimum 3 years of professional experience in commercial aerospace wire harness design. - Experience authoring functional test procedures and supporting qualification testing. - U.S. Person status as defined under ITAR/EAR. Nice to have: - Aircraft seat program experience (major plus, potential difference-maker). - Experience designing harnesses with Rapid Harness, or equivalent electrical CAD tools such as Mentor Capital, Zuken E3, or Creo Schematics. - Experience supporting AS9102 first article inspection for suppliers and/or customers. - Direct experience with Boeing D6 series wiring standards and the Airbus equivalent (such as ABD0100 or A350 wiring standards). - Familiarity with CAN bus and matrix communication architectures. - Experience working with DERs through certification. - Prior experience in a startup or fast-moving product development environment. What we have to offer: We are not just building components. We are reshaping the future of the Aerospace and Defense component industry, which is a $300B+ market! Come join us and help build next generation systems that will make a massive impact at global scale. - Competitive compensation: $90,000 to $110,000 base salary + equity - Exceptional healthcare benefits — Medical is 100% covered by the company - Life Insurance (2x Salary) 100% covered by the company - Flexible PTO, 401K, Financial Wellness Resources, and more ## 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) ## Other roles at Salient Motion - [CMM Operator - Quality Inspection](https://feeny.ai/job/cmm-operator-quality-inspection-salient-motion-saginaw-3zqnv0237amp) — Saginaw, MI - [Senior Power Electronics Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-power-electronics-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-4yn1dr63rg99) — Hawthorne, CA - [Engineering Co-op](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-co-op-salient-motion-hawthorne-5rzzp0jrk03p) — Hawthorne, CA - [Senior Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-mechanical-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-knkd3cv93mx2) — Hawthorne, CA - [Mechanical Test Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-test-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-vkjdcwzj525z) — Hawthorne, CA - [Electrical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-05jbnk1ckz9w) — Hawthorne, CA - [People Operations Generalist](https://feeny.ai/job/people-operations-generalist-salient-motion-hawthorne-21ejkdqd2ggd) — Hawthorne, CA - [Controls Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/controls-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-ne6rfv91cwrf) — Hawthorne, CA - [Global Supply Chain Manager- Electronics](https://feeny.ai/job/global-supply-chain-manager-electronics-salient-motion-hawthorne-gcm3vx04a36d) — Hawthorne, CA - [Global Supply Chain Manager, Mechanical](https://feeny.ai/job/global-supply-chain-manager-mechanical-salient-motion-hawthorne-62aw33agrcak) — Hawthorne, CA