Machine Learning Defense Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Hadrian - Manufacturing the Future
Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America. By combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we help aerospace and defense companies build rockets, satellites, aircraft, ships, and other mission-critical systems up to 10x faster and at significantly lower cost.
Following our $1.37B Series D at a $7.87B valuation, Hadrian is rapidly expanding our manufacturing footprint, launching new capabilities across welding, casting, forging, electronics, additive manufacturing, and more, while scaling our Factory-as-a-Service platform to transform how critical products are built.
Backed by leading investors including JPMorgan Chase, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Lux Capital, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley, we're building the future of American manufacturing-and looking for exceptional people to help make it happen.
If you're ready to take on the most challenging and rewarding work of your career while helping create American manufacturing jobs for generations to come, you're exactly who we're looking for.
The Role
Copilot is our system for automating Design for Manufacturing (DFM) analysis and generating manufacturing processes. We work directly with some of the best operators in the world to identify high-impact opportunities to automate and augment with software.
Our team owns problems end-to-end: we design the software, define the manufacturing processes, and ensure they can be executed reliably in our factories. The work spans computational geometry, CAD/CAM integrations, high-performance systems, and full-stack web tooling. We execute whatever is required to deliver a working solution and best serve our users.
The DFM team within copilot is building the manufacturing data intelligence layer that serves as the tip of the spear for our automation stack. This platform ingests, interprets, and reasons over the full spectrum of manufacturing data (mechanical drawings, quality documentation, CAD data) and transforms it into structured, actionable information for the factory.
As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will own the ML lifecycle for the language models that understand and reason about the content in manufacturing data packages.
What You'll Do

• Research, develop, and deploy fine-tuned language models for document classification, key information extraction, table parsing, and multi-page/document reasoning
• Work alongside the core engineering team to build and maintain annotation tooling, implement active learning loops, and engineer synthetic data augmentation strategies
• Develop evaluation frameworks that extend beyond accuracy and CER, precisely quantifying system behavior and user impact
• Collaborate with the other members of the machine learning team to set the technical and product roadmaps for the AI platform
• Burn down the long tail, as every percentage point of accuracy maps to man-years of time savings at our scale

What We're Looking For

• 5-8 years of professional AI/ML experience, with at least 2 years working directly with large language models (fine-tuning, RLHF/DPO, or pre-training), with special consideration for work with layout-aware models
• Strong Python and PyTorch fluency: You've written custom training loops, loss functions, and data loaders from scratch when needed
• Production deployment ownership: You've shipped models to production and have been responsible for endpoint and model health
• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field preferred; equivalent industry experience valued equally

Bonus Points

• You have a passion for manufacturing and believe that the industry needs better software
• Previously worked in aerospace, defense, or manufacturing, and have experience working with manufacturing data
• Published research, achieved SOA results on relevant benchmarks, or contribute to open-source frameworks
• Prior experience working in a high-ownership startup environment

Compensation
For this role, the target salary range is $160,000- $250,000(actual range may vary based on experience).
This is the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the range may be modified in the future. An employee's pay position within the salary range will be based on several factors, including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.
Benefits for Full-time Employees

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans for employees
• 401k
• Relocation support may be provided for certain situations, based on business need.
• Flexible vacation policy
• Equity

ITAR Requirements
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
Use of AI in hiring
Hadrian uses AI-assisted tools in our recruiting and hiring processes to help our team work more efficiently. This may include tools that help organize and analyze recruiting data, as well as an AI-powered notetaker that can record and transcribe interviews and help coordinate feedback. These tools support our team and are not used to make hiring decisions. All candidate evaluations and hiring decisions are performed by humans. If an interview will be recorded, you will be notified in advance and may opt out at any time with no impact on your candidacy. Candidate data processed through these tools is subject to the same protections described in our Privacy Policy.
Hadrian Is An Equal Opportunity Employer
It is the Company's policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. The Company does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race inclusive of traits historically associated with race (including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, such as braids, locks and twists), color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, national origin (including, in California, possession of a drivers license), ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, height or weight, medical condition, family care status, military or veteran status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, exercise of reproductive rights, any other basis protected by local, state, or federal laws, or any combination of the above characteristics. When necessary, the Company also makes reasonable accommodations for disabled candidates and employees, including for candidates or employees who are disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.