Machine Shop & Manufacturing Technician
Monumental
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Monumental is automating on-site construction with robotics and software. Our mission is to make construction primarily software-defined and work towards a future where beautiful, bespoke buildings are built within a single day with minimal labour.
We’re a small team of mostly engineers (coming from companies like Palantir, Qualcomm, Dyson, Shopify, Tesla & Meta) that is looking to expand the operational part of our business. We're still in the first days of building the company and this is a unique opportunity to be an early employee in a high-growth, high ambition startup environment. From Day 1, you’ll be able to work with an experienced founding team backed by top-tier investors.
You can read more on why we believe you should spend your time working on construction, and learn more about our vision and company.
About you and this role
We are looking for a machine shop & manufacturing technician to join our team. You’ll be part of our initial machine shop team and will work closely with our hardware and software engineering team. Help us bring our robots to life and join our mission to bring automation to the construction industry to create affordable, beautiful, high quality housing for everyone.
This role is a generalist technician role in a small startup environment with a lot of variety. You will be responsible for:
- maintaining our workshop and machine tools;
- helping our team fabricate and assemble various prototypes;
- owning and running small series production (e.g., 5-10) for successful designs.
A typical day might involve you reviewing a project in CAD together with the engineering team. You would then fabricate the parts in the assembly using our 3D printers, CNC mill, or lathe. We’d expect you to share design feedback with the engineering team on DFA or DFM improvements that can be made. You might end the day by checking the necessary stock and equipment for upcoming builds in the next weeks to remove any possible blockers. You will be working in a fast-paced environment: quick sketches and a discussion with the engineering team should be enough to start producing parts when we’re working towards a proof of concept.
On a non-technical level, we are looking for someone who loves nothing more than working in a highly collaborative team to solve complex problems and bring novel inventions to the world. You’d thrive in a high pace environment, be excited to continuously learn new skills, and love challenging conventional ideas.
We are unable to support relocation for this role. Applicants must be based in the Netherlands and able to commute onsite to Amsterdam to be considered, we are able to provide visa sponsorship for local candidates.
What you’ll be working on
- Fabrication and assembly of R&D prototypes–this could be anything from a new end-effectors we’re testing, an autonomous ground vehicle that can traverse rough construction site, or an entire robotic crane.
- Getting our designs to small series production: planning and optimizing the build process, feeding back DFM and DFA changes to the hardware team, and fabricating and assembling the robots.
- Responsible for ordering hardware and overall stock management, improving our inventory and parts management process where possible.
- Running and maintaining our machines in the workshop, including CNC mill, lathe, drill press and lots of 3D printers.
- Proposing and ordering new equipment to improve in-house production capabilities when necessary
- Help us run our construction robots and build testing rigs in the office, and occasionally join us and the robots on construction sites to help with whatever is needed.
- Manage the workshop and advise our team on best practices for design and manufacturing.
- Promoting and maintaining a safe, clean, and organized working environment.
What we’re looking for
- Prior experience working in a machine shop or lab environment.
- Confidence using CNC mill, lathe, 3D printers, hand tools etc. to manufacture components.
- Able to build relatively complex assemblies using top level designs generated using CAD packages.
- Familiarity with precision measuring instruments and the ability to machine parts to close tolerances. You have the ability to infer which features of a part requires precision when this is not made explicit.
- A high level of attention to detail.
- Projects outside of work to showcase creative skills.
- Some experience and understanding of assembling or wiring electronics.
- Experience or interest in welding.
- Ability to design and edit basic components in CAD.
These things are not required, but a strong bonus
Why Monumental?
Joining Monumental means being at the forefront of a movement aimed at making significant strides in the construction industry. Here, your work has the potential to impact not just the company but the future of how we build. If you're driven by innovation, eager to tackle complex challenges, and ready to make a tangible difference, we want to hear from you.
Interested candidates should reach out to us at: iwanttojoin@monumental.co - share with us the most interesting or challenging project you've worked on with your CV or portfolio —we're excited to learn about your journey and discuss how you can contribute to ours.
If you don’t meet all the qualifications here but are excited about Monumental and feel you’d still be able to help us solve difficult problems, do get in touch. We are open to generalists with a demonstrated ability to focus on outcomes and get things done and are comfortable with you learning things as you go along.