What Rafael does
Rafael is a state-owned Israeli company, founded in 1948 as the country's national defense research and development laboratory and incorporated as a company in 2002. It develops, manufactures and supports defense systems for land, air, sea, space and cyber — including the SPIKE missile family, Iron Dome and the Trophy active protection system. Its headquarters is in Kiryat Bialik, and it is described as the largest employer in northern Israel (checked 2 September 2026).
Its jobs site groups roles by field: technology, research and development; technicians and practical engineers; industrial engineering, management and information systems; marketing, sales and customer retention; and corporate staff roles. Within those sit software and computer science, economics and finance, human resources, and procurement and contracting.
How hiring at Rafael works
Rafael runs a dedicated Hebrew jobs site of its own rather than a careers tab on the corporate site. It holds the job search, the application page, a students page and a page called "the candidacy process" (checked 2 September 2026). The company also maintains a separate recruiting LinkedIn page alongside its corporate one.
Security clearance and citizenship: not published in wording we can quote. Rafael is a defense contractor and clearance requirements plausibly exist — but we found no statement from the company itself defining them, and we are not going to quote interview-prep sites as though they were company policy. Where such a requirement applies to a specific role, it belongs in that role's posting.
Employee referral program: not published.
Students: there is a dedicated students page, covering roles in image processing, signal processing, algorithms, real-time, software, electro-optics, physics, control, hardware, mechanics, economics and HR.
Why applying through the form is not enough
Rafael is an organisation of roughly 10,000 people that, by its own reported figures, hired 1,800 new employees during 2024. At that size an application lands at a recruitment centre, not on a manager's desk — and the distance between your file and the person who decides whether to interview you is several stops long.
A referral shortens that distance. As we wrote in the post on referrals, it does not skip stages and does not guarantee a reply — it changes the channel. A 2015 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found referred applicants are hired at a higher rate even when their skills look similar. At Rafael there is a second benefit: someone on the team knows what the role actually requires, and can tell you whether it is worth applying at all.
The right way to apply to Rafael
- Find the exact role on the jobs site and keep its title and number.
- Tailor the resume to it. Engineering and R&D postings name specific technologies and tools — those need to appear in your document in their words, where you have done them.
- Find one person inside. A LinkedIn search on the company and the field, alumni of your degree, and whoever from your unit works there now. Rafael is a major northern employer, so the odds you already know somebody are better than they look.
- One short message: who you are, which job, two pieces of evidence that you fit, and one request to pass your resume inside.
- One reminder after five to seven days, then the next person. Apply through the form in parallel.
Tagishoti does exactly these steps: it finds matching roles, tailors a resume to each, uses your connected LinkedIn account to identify who at the company could put you forward, and drafts the message. Nothing is sent without your approval, and there is no promise anyone will agree to refer you.
FAQ: jobs at Rafael
Do you need a security clearance to work at Rafael?
Rafael does not publish wording on its site defining clearance or citizenship requirements for candidates, so we are not going to state them here. Where a specific role carries such a requirement, it is written in that role's posting. Do not rely on third-party descriptions.
Does Rafael hire students?
Yes. Its jobs site has a dedicated students page covering a range of engineering and corporate fields, with hours adapted around semesters and exam periods (checked 2 September 2026).
Where are Rafael's sites?
Headquarters is in Kiryat Bialik. In its reporting on 2024 results the company described R&D centres in the north, Be'er Sheva, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, plus a new branch in Hadera. A complete official site list is not published.
How long does the hiring process take?
Rafael publishes a page called "the candidacy process", but we could not verify its stages or timelines from a company source. As of 2 September 2026, treat it as not published.