Mechanical Engineer

Monumental is automating on-site construction with robotics and software. Our mission is to make construction software-defined and autonomous - a future where beautiful, bespoke buildings go up in a single day, with minimal labour.

We're a growing team of engineers, operators and technicians from companies like Palantir, Qualcomm, Dyson, Shopify, Tesla, Meta and Google DeepMind. It's still the early days of building the company, and this is a chance to make an outsized impact on a problem that matters. We build the whole stack in-house - hardware and software. From day one, you'll work with an experienced founding team.

Monumental is based in the city centre of Amsterdam, in a beautiful facility with an fully equipped workshop and robot testing floor. We're explicitly not a hybrid or remote-first company - you can't build robots or walls from home, so we're onsite five days a week.

Read more on why we believe you should spend your time working on construction, and learn about our vision and company. You might enjoy Based in Europe’s film on how we’re fixing Europe’s housing shortage, or this video by Andreas Klinger of what our office looks like.

About the role

We are looking for a mechanical engineer to join our team of hardware and software engineers, trying to bring robots and automation to the construction industry to create affordable, beautiful, high quality housing for everyone. You are a maker, who enjoys building physical things from start to finish, with a bias for speed and simplicity.

You enjoy being involved and contributing to the entire engineering process: asking the right questions to scope a problem, doing back of the envelope calculations, fabricating parts in our workshop, all the way through to testing your design live on a construction site.

You will also work closely with our software and perception team, figuring out how to take your mechanisms and make them part of our autonomous stack. You are able to think on a systems level about the bigger picture, but also be able to suggest when complex software solutions might best be solved with a simpler hardware mechanism.

Our approach to building robots has focused on identifying the key areas that need de-risking and tackling them head-on through rapid prototyping, avoiding lengthy design processes. This has allowed us to achieve remarkable results in a surprisingly short amount of time, defying conventional expectations. If our approach excites you, this role could be a great fit for your interests and skills.

We will offer you an environment that will allow you to thrive using this approach: you will have a high amount of autonomy and we will work hard to not slow you down with company meetings, unnecessary spending approvals, or other processes.

What you’ll do

• You’re going to be designing and building robots every day

• Design mechanisms to make a new end effector hold a brick more effectively;

• Retrofitting existing scaffolding systems so we can autonomously and safely move 1000kg to 10m height;

• Design an autonomous ground vehicle that can traverse rough terrain;

• Build a system that can move or pump mortar (which will require you to wrap your head around the non-Newtonian behavior of cements).

For any project you’re working on, we expect you to own the entire process from start-to-end:

1. Design hardware concepts from scratch.

2. Where necessary, decide on materials and simulate static and dynamic loads, stresses, and vibrations using hand calculations or using FEA tools.

3. Fabricate a proof-of-concept prototype in the shortest amount of time:

   • Source all required components;

   • Fabricate the necessary parts in our workshop whether they’re 3D printed or require CNC milling or turning;

   • Assemble the prototype and wire it up with whatever actuators and other electronics it might require;

   • Own testing the prototype, iterating on your designs where necessary, and sometimes throwing things out and starting over again.

4. Test your prototype in our office. Testing in many cases means mixing mortar and building (and demolishing) actual walls that our robots build.

5. Work with our software and perception engineers and integrate into our software and perception stack, making your designs truly autonomous.

6. Spend time on construction sites, both seeing how your designs perform in the real world and for inspiration of what we should be improving next.

7. Once successful, you will productize the prototype:

   • Produce clean CADs in OnShape following best practices;

   • Produce technical drawings, documentation and other artifacts to aid small series production and assembly.

      

What we’re looking for

• A proven record of being a builder and being able to work autonomously: you can point us to example of shipped projects where you were the driving force of getting something done. This can be in a professional context, in a top student (”dream”) team, or even just personal side projects.

• Experience in designing and delivering products from concept up to low series volume.

• Proficiency in rapid prototyping, 3D printing, machining, and milling to make product designs a reality.

• Deep knowledge of mechanical systems and structural dynamics: e.g. statics, mechanics of materials, dynamics, vibrations, material science, and controls.

• Expertise with 3D CAD modeling with complex parts and assemblies, e.g. OnShape, Solidworks, or Siemens NX.

• Expertise in multi-physics simulations (FEA) applied to structural designing problems, e.g. Comsol and Ansys, but also being able to do hand calculations when that makes the most sense.

• Experience selecting, sourcing, and integrating electronics components (e.g. actuators, sensors, cameras) into hardware design.

• Being able to write (embedded) code in C or C++ is a plus.

• B.Sc. in mechanical, mechatronics, or robotics engineering or similar experience is a nice to have

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.

For open applications (where you don’t see an exact role match), please reach out to us at: [email protected] - share with us the most interesting or challenging project you’ve worked on, why you want to join and your CV or portfolio.

Unfortunately, we do not currently offer internships.

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 welcome generalists who focus on outcomes and are eager to learn on the job.