Raytheon’s hiring spree takes flight with 200 new Goleta jobs
Raytheon Technologies is greatly expanding its presence in Southern California, including filling 200 new jobs in at its Goleta operation.
In total, Raytheon will be adding 1,000 jobs the Southern California region, including locations in Goleta, El Segundo and Fullerton.
Raytheon, headquartered in Virginia, is one of the largest aerospace and defense companies in the world, generating $64.3 billion in revenue with a net income of $3.8 billion in 2021. The company has more than 174,000 jobs worldwide.
In Goleta, its Raytheon Intelligence & Space division employs about 1,400 people, so there will be about 1,600 once the hiring spree is over. Of those, 400 are engineering jobs, which are some of Raytheon’s best-paying positions.
The company also owns about 353,000 square feet of facility space in the Goleta area.
“We’re growing. We’re looking to fill about 1,000 engineering jobs, supply chain jobs, and tech jobs in general, between El Segundo and Goleta,” Douglas Greene, the senior director of talent and acquisition of Raytheon Intelligence & Space, told the Business Times. “We’ve got great partners in the area … that includes UCSB and Cal Poly SLO, and we believe that there’s a strong talent pool in Southern California.”
Greene said Raytheon hopes to fill all of the openings by the end of the year.
“It’s a very competitive landscape in Southern California. There’s a lot of opportunity in the California market and I think that’s from my vantage point as the head of talent acquisition, this is something I’m really looking forward to getting done,” he said.
The are no plans to purchase any more land or facilities in Southern California, Greene said.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Raytheon has had many workers remain in its offices full time, with some working a hybrid schedule and only a few fully remote. About half of Raytheon employees now work from home. Those in manufacturing positions have worked in-person throughout the pandemic because their work was deemed essential to national security or other customer commitments.
“That is the forefront of what we do, meeting our customer demand, and we have found that there’s a need for our products and services and therefore our commitment to our customer helps us succeed,” Greene said.
The aerospace industry is at an interesting point, especially on the Central Coast. With Vandenberg rebranding to a Space Force base, looking to take on more commercial space operations, and hoping to receive a STARCOM designation, it is clear the region wants to play a bigger role in an industry that is projected to grow from $416.6 billion in 2020 to $550.7 billion by the end of the decade, according to the market research firm Mordor Intelligence.
Raytheon’s Goleta operation is space-focused and includes design, business development and regular operations.
“As a layman, I literally get to work and help future rocket scientists get employment and gain employment in a growing organization, and I think I’m not sure it gets really more exciting than that,” Greene said.
Some of the work being done in Goleta and other parts of Southern California include manufacturing sensor payloads for its Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared missile warning systems. These sensors provide early warning of ballistic missile launches and contribute to other defense and intelligence missions.
The Next-Gen OPIR system replaced the Space-Based Infrared System, which began in the mid-1990s, as the Space Force plans to launch the first of five next-gen OPIR satellites in 2025.
There is also the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, or VIIRS. It is a key instrument in the Joint Polar Satellite System that gives meteorologists detailed information that no other instrument can supply, Greene said.
“It’s got diverse industry applications from agriculture, finance, transportation, insurance, and energy,” he said.
NOTE: This article was updated shortly after it was originally posted to include the correct location of Raytheon headquarters and to make clear that the Goleta location is part of the company’s Raytheon Intelligence & Space division.
