When an aerospace or defense company needs a technical leader, the target list often starts in the same place: people already doing the job at SpaceX, Anduril, one of the primes, or another company the market has decided produces exceptional talent.
The problem is that every competitor has largely built the same list.
That is not a small inefficiency. A 2025 AIA/McKinsey workforce study found A&D attrition holding near 15%, while 76% of AIA member organizations reported sustained challenges hiring engineering talent. If every organization is chasing the same names, the real question is where the next generation of leaders comes from.
JC Christian and I got into that question on the latest episode of the Christian & Timbers AI Builders Podcast. The conversation covered why SpaceX talent has become hard to recruit and where we're both seeing leadership potential before the market has priced it in.
The Obvious Hire Is Becoming the Hardest Hire
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share in June 2026, turning years of equity into serious wealth for employees who had been there long enough to accumulate it. A recruiting problem follows directly from that. The people with the deepest SpaceX experience, the ones every target list starts with, now have the least financial reason to leave.
That dynamic is not unique to SpaceX. Any company whose stock or valuation has run hard creates the same effect. Employees who most look like the ideal candidate on paper are often the hardest to move, because the market has already paid them enough to remove the urgency.
That creates a problem with proven leaders. The experience that makes someone attractive to competitors can also make them harder to move.
The Better Search May Start One Level Down
Employees who joined SpaceX more recently present a different recruiting opportunity. They carry the operating pedigree and brand recognition, but they have not yet built the financial cushion that removes the incentive to move.
Across aerospace and defense, capability tends to run ahead of title. Someone can already own a critical program, operate inside a difficult manufacturing or classified environment, or carry responsibility well beyond what their formal role describes, long before the market recognizes them with an executive title.
The more interesting search target is the emerging leader: someone whose scope has already grown into the job, even if their business card has not caught up. Waiting for the title to arrive before recognizing the capability means competing for that person only after the rest of the market has found them too.
Instead of screening primarily on title and tenure, the better filter is whether a candidate has already demonstrated the judgment a bigger mandate requires. A VP of Engineering carrying CTO-level scope, or a program lead already making VP of AI decisions, often has more room to grow into a role than an executive making a lateral move.
The Founder Path Is Competing for the Same Talent
Some of those candidates may not join another A&D company at all. Employees with financial flexibility and a founder mindset may leave to build something of their own, particularly as interest in physical AI accelerates.
For candidates weighing that option, the alternative may be starting a company of their own rather than joining another one. A larger compensation package may still leave the candidate comparing an executive role with the autonomy and upside of building something themselves. The role has to offer something meaningful in return: real ownership over a hard technical problem and organizational influence.
Some Talent Pools Take Years to Build
Cleared talent is harder for a different reason. Top-secret and other classified clearances take years to obtain, and the people who already hold them mostly come from a limited set of primes, suppliers, and organizations that work inside classified environments. Obtaining the required level of clearance adds time, and maintaining a clearance carries its own ongoing considerations for the employer.
That timeline punishes companies that wait. A company that starts thinking about the pipeline only once it has an open cleared-executive role is already behind. Widening the search once the role opens does little to expand a talent pool that takes years to build.
External recruiting only closes part of the gap. Some future A&D leaders will have to be developed internally, especially where clearance requirements narrow the external candidate pool.
Find Them Before Their Titles Catch Up
I kept coming back to people who are on the cusp of operating at the level expected inside organizations like SpaceX, before the market has given them the titles that make them obvious.
The search question becomes: who has already demonstrated the judgment and technical credibility to hold the job next? That might be an engineering leader ready for enterprise-level responsibility, or someone with classified-program experience whose scope has grown faster than their title has kept up with.
What This Means for A&D Hiring
By the time an emerging A&D leader has the title and market recognition that make them an obvious candidate, much of the recruiting advantage is already gone.
The search has to start earlier and look past title toward actual scope, trajectory, the environment that produced the candidate, and whether the next role gives them a real reason to move. In a market where the obvious names are getting harder to recruit, finding leadership before the rest of the market sees it may be one of the few real advantages left.
How Christian & Timbers Approaches A&D Leadership Searches
Christian & Timbers applies this thinking across its aerospace and defense executive searches. Scope and decision-making authority matter more than whether a candidate already holds the exact title on the org chart.
The firm's searches cover VP of AI, VP of Engineering, Chief Digital Officer, general manager, and program leadership roles across aerospace and defense, defense technology, autonomy, physical AI, manufacturing, robotics, commercial aerospace, and adjacent industrial sectors.
That can mean looking deeper inside established aerospace companies or identifying rising leaders across defense technology and physical AI. The question is how well a candidate's experience fits the operating environment ahead and whether the next role gives them enough reason to move.
If your next A&D leadership search requires looking beyond the obvious names, talk with our team.
FAQ
- Why is experienced aerospace and defense talent becoming harder to recruit?
Equity, compensation, internal status, and career opportunities all tie the most established candidates to their current employers. In some parts of defense, security-clearance requirements narrow the available pool further. Together, these factors can make an otherwise attractive candidate much harder to move.
- Where should aerospace and defense companies look for their next generation of leaders?
Companies should look beyond executives already holding the target title. Engineering leaders running critical programs and technical operators whose responsibilities have expanded beyond their formal roles are one source. Experienced professionals inside classified environments are another. The key is identifying evidence of executive-level scope before the title catches up.
- Should A&D companies recruit one level below the target executive role?
In some searches, yes. A candidate one level below the target role may already be operating with much of the required scope. What matters more than their formal title is what they already own and what they are already trusted to decide without approval.
- How do security clearances affect A&D executive recruiting?
Clearance requirements reduce the number of immediately viable candidates for certain defense roles. Because obtaining and maintaining higher-level clearances takes time, companies with future cleared-leadership needs benefit from identifying potential leaders within the existing cleared population before an executive vacancy appears.