Hard tech companies are solving the biggest challenges of our time—but most of them are struggling to hire the right people fast enough to make it happen.

I’ve always been inspired by curiosity and invention. With a background as a Propulsion Engineer at SpaceX and a stint as Head of Ops for a drone startup, my career has always been driven by an unrelenting need to find a novel idea and help make it a reality.

In 2019, Seyka Mejeur and I recognized a huge market gap when it came to headhunting for startups in emerging hard tech ecosystems.

Hard tech is a wildly exciting landscape because the people it attracts are so mission driven. Hard tech trailblazers are quite literally changing the world as we know it. Not to mention, the skill overlap between space, climate, and defense talent is clear even though the hardware or end user look quite different.

In order for these startups to bring their ideas from vision to reality, they need the right people in the right seats.

So, why did we choose to focus on climate, which seems unrelated to space and defense? Keep reading to learn more about the bridge between these sectors.

First: Why Hard Tech Startups?

Put simply: Hard Tech = Hard Problems with a Big Mission.

Hard problems aren’t going to attract everyone, but they absolutely attract specific types of people, and those are our type of people.

Hard tech startups demand a fail fast mentality paired with a strategic plan that balances essential pieces of the startup puzzle, like market analysis, fundraising, storytelling, and hiring.

The best engineers, leaders, and executives in the world don’t shy away from hard problems. They run toward them. They thrive in ambiguity, iterate under pressure, and push the boundaries of what’s possible. That’s exactly why we focus on them.

Why Climate, Space, and Defense?

Throughout the life of AdAstra Talent Advisors, we kept hearing strong candidates from top companies like SpaceX say “the only thing that could pull me away from exploring other planets is saving this one.”

The world’s brightest minds want to work on problems with the biggest impact. It’s no mystery why climate, space and defense have such a strong impact on the way we live, both today and in the future. That’s why we see so manymission driven people gravitate towards these areas of hard tech.

Most people see that space and defense have a clear connection to one another, but climate has surprisingly significant overlap for reasons I’ll elaborate on below.

The “Why climate, space, and defense”question has a multi-tiered answer because these industries not only tap into my personal interests meaningfully – they also make a ton of sense to target from the perspective of talent.

Let’s take a closer look at why climate, space, and defense attract such mission driven people.

The idea of being able to catalyze innovations that future generations depend on across climate, space, and defense tech is wildly exciting to some of the world’s sharpest minds.

✅ Climate: The battle for our planet’s future is happening now. Breakthroughs in clean energy, energy storage, and other means of reducing emissions and cleaning the planet will decide whether we win it. 🌍

✅ Space: We’re not just talking about launching rockets anymore. We’re building an entire economy in space—from in-space manufacturing to deep-space exploration with advanced propulsion. 🚀

✅ Defense: In today’s world, national security is tech-driven. AI, autonomy, and hypersonics will define the next generation of defense capabilities—and the people building them need to be the best in the world. 👨👩👧👦

Now let’s get into why this combination makes so much sense.

Across my SpaceX network, I’ve seen a lot of interest in the climate, space, and defense  hard tech industries.

I mentioned earlier that the talent overlap across these industries is strong. We’re talking about high reliability tech here– tech that’s mission critical, safety critical, and leaves little to no room for error when it’s time to deliver. Not to mention, talent from these sectors are no strangers to designing tech for highly unique operating conditions and difficult environments. Materials and operating fluids often overlap, too. These similarities mean that technical skills are often highly transferable.

Whether it’s individual contributors leaving to pursue an opportunity at a climate, space, or defense startup, or leaders breaking off to build their own ventures – it’s a common thread across the SpaceX community to remain in these three areas of hard tech. I’ve also seen top engineers and executives jump from one of these three areas to another very successfully because of the high reliability, mission driven commonality.

Earlier in AdAstra’s journey, the space and climate connection became clear but most of the talent was specifically disinterested in defense. In recent years, we’ve seen a big uptick in defense interest from talent as geopolitical tensions rise. Plus, we’re seeing more and more startups work towards obtaining government funding, especially from the DoD, even if their original mission didn’t overlap with defense in a significant way. This is largely due to the tighter fundraising environment that we’re in now.

Despite these sectors sounding potentially unrelated at first glance, the overlap is substantial.

Final Thoughts

While climate might seem quite different from space and defense on the surface, there are a ton of parallels when looking at talent for these sectors. The combination of hard problems, high mission drive, high reliability tech, technical overlap, and a deep desire to expand the bounds of humankind makes for a cohesive business model.

We’re inspired by the vision of the world where pioneering technologies not only explore new frontiers in space, but also safeguard our planet and its inhabitants. This vision drives our commitment at AdAstra.