As programs grow, Lockheed pursues new talent

By Marjorie Censer / December 4, 2018 at 3:01 PM

The surge of new aerospace and defense work means Lockheed Martin must look beyond simply recruiting from competitors and must attract new employees to the industry, Jeff Babione, the general manager of the company's Skunk Works unit said today.

"As you look across the aerospace and defense industry, there's a significant amount of new programs," he said during a call with reporters. "There's a tremendous amount of work."

Babione said Lockheed is competing both with other defense companies as well as technology companies for new graduates.

While Lockheed has long hired aerospace engineers and software engineers, he said the company is increasingly looking at autonomy, artificial intelligence and data analytics, requiring it to reach a different market of engineers and scientists.

"It's an explosion of technology, and that drives us to need even more engineers in a broad spectrum," he said.

Babione said Skunk Works alone will be hiring 50 to 60 engineers per month over the next several months.

"Something that I've seen us do this year that I had not seen us do before is, when we go to the universities, we're going basically with job offers in hand," he said.

200691