In a desire to get a working submersible to the Titanic wreck site as fast as possible, the Titan was built at a risk to safety, with cost-cutting measures and poor engineering permitted by CEO Stockton Rush, a former employee said in scathing remarks Tuesday at a U.S. Coast Guard investigatory hearing.

“There was a big push to get this done. A lot of steps along the way were missed,” testified David Lochridge, former marine operations director of OceanGate, the Washington state company that…