Hiring
Corvid Technologies, an employee-owned defense contractor based in Mooresville, North Carolina, plans to add 423 jobs and invest $95 million to expand its campus there, Gov. Josh Stein announced Tuesday, Oct. 13. The state put the average annual salary for the new positions at $81,550, well above the Iredell County average wage of $64,895.
The expansion includes a new 400,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at the company’s Mooresville headquarters. The state said the building will add engineering and manufacturing of vehicle launch systems. It did not say what kinds of vehicles the systems are for.
The jobs
According to the governor’s office, the new positions will include assemblers, electricians, engineers, production managers, technicians and testers. The state estimates the jobs could add nearly $34.5 million a year to the regional payroll once filled.
The 423 jobs are a hiring commitment, not positions that exist today. The release does not give a hiring schedule or say how many people Corvid employs now. Job seekers interested in production, electrical or test roles should watch the company’s own postings rather than assume openings are available immediately.
Corvid was founded in 2004 as a small modeling and simulation firm. The state describes it as a non-traditional defense contractor focused on digital engineering, modeling and simulation, and precision manufacturing. CEO David Robinson said that “in just two and a half years, we’ve grown from 8,000 square feet of manufacturing space to 800,000 square feet.”
Incentive terms
North Carolina’s Economic Investment Committee approved a Job Development Investment Grant for the project the same day. The grant could reimburse Corvid up to $4,449,750 over a 12-year term. Under the program, the state pays only after the Departments of Commerce and Revenue verify each year that the company has met its job-creation and investment targets.
The state estimates the project will grow North Carolina’s economy by $1.7 billion over those 12 years and projects a 93% return on public dollars, or $1.93 in state revenue for every dollar of potential cost. Because the site is classified as Tier 3 in the state’s economic tier system, the agreement also calls for as much as $1,483,250 to go into the state’s Industrial Development Fund Utility Account, which helps rural communities pay for infrastructure upgrades.
Mitchell Community College, the North Carolina Community College System and the Commerce Department’s Division of Workforce Solutions are among the partners listed on the project, along with Iredell County, the Town of Mooresville and Duke Energy. The state said leaders from North Carolina and Corvid met at the 2026 Farnborough International Airshow to discuss the expansion, and that Corvid has received multiple One North Carolina Small Business Program grants.
A second big commitment in Iredell
This is not Corvid’s first large state-backed hiring pledge. In March 2018, then-Gov. Roy Cooper announced that the company would locate its headquarters in Mooresville, invest $28.9 million and create 367 jobs, supported by a grant of up to $9,000,750 over 12 years. The October announcement does not say how many of those earlier jobs have been created.
The local labor market
Corvid will be hiring in a tight local labor market. Iredell County’s unemployment rate was 3.3% in August, according to preliminary, not seasonally adjusted Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, down from 3.9% in August 2025. The county’s labor force was 102,885, slightly smaller than a year earlier. Statewide, North Carolina’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.4% in September, compared with 3.9% a year before.
With unemployment that low, the community-college and state workforce partners named in the announcement are likely to matter as Corvid recruits for hundreds of skilled production and engineering roles.
Sources
- Office of the Governor of North Carolina, “North Carolina Defense Company to Invest $95 Million in Mooresville Expansion,” October 13, 2026. https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2026/10/13/north-carolina-defense-company-invest-95-million-mooresville-expansion
- N.C. Department of Commerce, “Governor Cooper Announces 367 New Jobs in Iredell County,” March 27, 2018. https://www.commerce.nc.gov/news/press-releases/governor-cooper-announces-367-new-jobs-iredell-county
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Iredell County, N.C., unemployment rate and labor force (LAUCN37097…), accessed October 21, 2026. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUCN370970000000003
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, North Carolina seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (LASST370000000000003), accessed October 21, 2026. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST370000000000003
Featured photo: Main Street in the Mooresville Historic District, Mooresville, North Carolina, with the town's historic rail depot at left; photo uploaded January 2013. Representative image; not Corvid Technologies' campus. Photo: Cdtew at English Wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Cropped from the original.
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