Director, Talent Acquisition

Hybrid position at out Solana Beach, CA or Tampa, FL Offices. Ability to travel as needed to support multiple business segments and support M&A activities.

The Director of Talent Acquisition leads the enterprise-wide strategy, governance, and execution of talent acquisition for a defense organization. This role is accountable for developing long-range recruiting strategies, strengthening the organization's competitive talent position, and driving operational excellence across all hiring functions. The Director ensures that recruitment practices are compliant with government and defense-industry regulations and tightly aligned with business priorities and organizational values of accountability, integrity, excellence, tenacity, and teamwork. This leader partners closely with the Director of Workforce Planning to translate workforce demand forecasts into scalable, proactive recruiting strategies.

Essential Functions

• Develop and execute the enterprise talent acquisition strategy, ensuring alignment with organizational goals, workforce planning forecasts, and long-term capability needs.
• Partner with the Director of Workforce Planning, HR leadership, and senior executives to anticipate future talent requirements and design multi-year sourcing strategies for critical skill areas.
• Provide strategic leadership for the full TA ecosystem, including recruitment operations, sourcing, employer brand, recruiting technology, compliance, and candidate experience.
• Lead and mentor TA managers, recruiters, and TA operations staff to create a high-performance, data-driven, and collaborative culture.
• Establish governance and compliance frameworks for OFCCP, ITAR, and other defense-industry hiring requirements; partner with Legal and Compliance on audits, reporting, and risk mitigation.
• Own recruiting analytics and KPI frameworks to monitor hiring effectiveness, forecast recruiting capacity, and inform executive-level decision-making.
• Set the strategic direction for recruitment technology platforms, data tools, assessments, and sourcing systems; oversee vendor selection, negotiation, and performance management.
• Drive organization-wide employer brand strategy, ensuring consistent messaging and competitive position in the defense and aerospace talent markets.
• Represents the organization externally with universities, industry partners, government agencies, and professional associations to strengthen talent pipelines and brand visibility.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives, piloting innovative sourcing methods, optimizing processes, and elevating TA maturity across the enterprise.
• Perform other duties as required.
• Regular and reliable attendance on a full-time basis [or in accordance with posted schedule].
• Responsible for exhibiting professional behavior with both internal and external business associates that reflects positively on the company and is consistent with the company's policies and practices.
• Embodies AEVEX’s cultural values and aligns daily actions with department goals and company culture.

Qualifications and Competencies

• Security Clearance -Ability to obtain/maintain a DoD clearance, U.S. Citizenship required.
• Demonstrated expertise in OFCCP, ITAR, and federal contractor compliance frameworks.
• Proven ability to build and execute strategic recruiting programs at scale.
• Strong executive communication, stakeholder partnership, and influencing skills.
• Advanced proficiency in TA analytics, forecasting, and data-driven decision-making.
• Directs and provides expert knowledge in the strategic function of the department.
• Develops short and long-term people and organizational strategy in alignment with AEVEX goals and direction.
• Leads with impact & influence. Establishes credibility, effectively persuades and develops others, and achieves important objectives collaboratively.
• Identifies, recruits, and retains top-notch talent.
• Champions AEVEX’s culture and empowers employees to take responsibility for their jobs and goals.
• Sets performance standards and encourages employee engagement and results through delegation, continuous feedback, goal setting, and performance management.
• Maintains transparent communication. Appropriately communicates organization information through department meetings, one-on-one meetings, and appropriate email, and regular interpersonal communication.

Education / Certifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree in HR, Business Administration, or related field preferred.

Experience

• 12+ years of progressive talent acquisition experience
• 5+ years leading enterprise or multi-site recruiting functions.
• Experience in defense, aerospace, or government contracting strongly preferred.
• Experience selecting, optimizing, and governing ATS platforms and modern sourcing tools.

Physical Requirements

Frequently required to sit, and to reach to use computers and other office equipment Note: For the purpose of this summary, occasionally is used to represent up to 1/3 of the time given to the work day, frequently represents 1/3 to 2/3 of the time and constantly represents 2/3 or more of the time.

About AEVEX

AEVEX, headquartered in Solana Beach, California, supports the U.S. national security mission and partner nation needs around the world by providing full-spectrum aviation, remote sensing, and analysis solutions. The company's capabilities include custom design and engineering; rapid prototyping; sensor integration and sustainment; aircraft modification and certification; flight test instrumentation and support; mission operations service; advanced intelligence data processing, exploitation, and dissemination solutions; and tailored hardware and software mission-system tools. AEVEX uses agile and customized approaches to rapidly define, develop, and deliver specialized solutions for airborne special mission needs for the U.S. Government, partner nations, and commercial businesses. AEVEX has major offices in California, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.

AEVEX provides a full suite of comprehensive benefits, including a 401(k)-retirement plan, comprehensive Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability and Life insurance group coverage with a portion of the premiums paid by the company, professional development funds, and an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) with counseling, legal help, child and elder care support, among other benefits for qualified employees.

Recruitment Communication Notice: All official correspondence regarding your application, application status, interviews, or the AEVEX hiring process will come directly from an AEVEX representative using a @aevex.com email address or through Greenhouse , our applicant tracking system. Please use caution with communications claiming to represent AEVEX from other email domains, and always verify the sender before responding or providing personal information.

AEVEX is an Equal Opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, religious creed, color, sex (including pregnancy, breast feeding and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, military and veteran status, marital status, age, protected medical condition, genetic information, physical disability, mental disability, or any other protected status in accordance with all applicable federal, state and local laws.