Cleared IT recruiting in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles is the acquisition headquarters of national security space and the flight test capital of the country.
Space Systems Command is headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is NASA's only federally funded research and development center, Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert is home to the Air Force Test Center and NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center, Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale builds the aircraft that Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman keep behind its fences, and Long Beach and Hawthorne hold the launch companies. Requisitions run from none at the commercial launch firms to TS/SCI at the space acquisition and special programs.
The region is several markets in one, and a requisition must state whether it sits in the South Bay, Pasadena, the Antelope Valley or Long Beach, because the freeways between them are measured in hours.
Installations, agencies and employers that shape hiring in Los Angeles
The organizations below shape the Los Angeles market. They are named as facts about the area; none is a client of the firm.
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Los Angeles Air Force Base and Space Systems Command
Located in El Segundo, the base is headquarters to Space Systems Command, which is responsible for developing, testing and maintaining military satellite constellations and other Department of Defense space systems, and it employs roughly 6,300 military, civilian and contractor personnel on site and worldwide.
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The Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Managed by Caltech, JPL is NASA's only federally funded research and development center, with approximately 5,500 employees and on-site subcontractors at a 168-acre facility in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena.
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Edwards Air Force Base and Armstrong Flight Research Center
Edwards, in the high desert mostly within Kern County, is home to the Air Force Test Center and its 412th Test Wing. NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center on the base is the agency's primary center for high-risk atmospheric flight research and test, with access to 301,000 acres of remote land and the supersonic corridor, and about 1,000 employees.
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Air Force Plant 42
In Palmdale, about 60 miles from downtown, Plant 42 controls more than 5,800 acres with 3.2 million square feet of industrial space, and its best-known contractors are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, whose Skunk Works is at the plant, and Northrop Grumman.
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Space Park, Hawthorne and Long Beach
Northrop Grumman's Space Park, an aerospace campus of more than 100 acres in Redondo Beach since 1961, has been owned and operated by the company since its 2002 acquisition of TRW. SpaceX's Hawthorne facility continues to support its Falcon launch business after the company moved its headquarters to Texas in 2024. Rocket Lab lists its business address at 3881 McGowen Street in Long Beach, and Relativity Space is headquartered in the same city.
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The Aerospace Corporation, RAND and the port
The Aerospace Corporation, which operates a federally funded research and development center providing technical oversight for national security space programs, was established in El Segundo in 1960. RAND is headquartered in Santa Monica. The Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro Bay calls itself the busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere, handling 10.2 million containers in 2025.
Commuting and remote work around Los Angeles
Interstate 405 runs 72.42 miles through the region and Interstate 105 runs 17.64 miles from the coast near El Segundo and the airport to Norwalk, according to the federal route log, with the Metro C Line in the freeway's median for most of its length, and the Metro K Line serves Inglewood and El Segundo on its way to the South Bay. Metrolink commuter rail links six Southern California counties on weekdays and most lines on weekends.
The Antelope Valley Freeway, State Route 14, runs from Interstate 5 through Santa Clarita, Palmdale and Lancaster toward Edwards, and it is the commute for Plant 42 and the flight test center from the northern suburbs; a candidate in the South Bay will not take it daily.
Space acquisition, flight test and the special programs at Plant 42 are on site without exception. JPL and the commercial launch companies offer hybrid arrangements for some engineering, and a requisition should state its policy and its part of the region.
Clearance levels commonly requested in Los Angeles
Space Systems Command's programs and the contractors supporting them ask for TS/SCI, the aircraft programs at Plant 42 ask for Top Secret and special program access with export control citizenship requirements, and flight test and JPL positions run from none through Secret depending on the program. Commercial launch and satellite companies hire on both sides of the line and name the program in the requisition.
California's posting rules apply throughout: the pay scale in any posting by an employer with 15 or more employees, no salary history questions, no conviction question before a conditional offer, and no non-compete clauses.
Specialties in demand in Los Angeles
Industries hiring in Los Angeles
Nearby markets
Questions about hiring in Los Angeles
Which Los Angeles requisitions require TS/SCI?
Those supporting Space Systems Command's programs in El Segundo and the contractors around the base, and the special access programs at Plant 42, which carry their own requirements. JPL, flight test and commercial launch requisitions mostly ask for Secret or none. The requisition summary should state the level and the site.
Is the Antelope Valley worked as part of the Los Angeles market?
It is named on this page because Plant 42 and Edwards shape the region's aerospace hiring, but it is a separate commute up the Antelope Valley Freeway, and requisitions there are sourced from Palmdale, Lancaster, Santa Clarita and the high desert rather than from the South Bay.