Co-Founder, CTO, Construction Robotics

Job description

ABOUT MARBLE Marble https://marble.studio/ is a climate tech venture studio. We partner with scientists, engineers, and operators to create companies solving hard climate problems in the world's largest industries. Our first 13 companies https://marble.studio/companies are building transformative products across energy, industry, agriculture, and climate resilience. 100% have been successful in raising follow-on to date. We are looking to partner with exceptional individuals to create our next venture. The opportunity below is a founding role in our next company creation, which we think will be absolutely massive! AUTOMATING CONSTRUCTION Construction is a $13 trillion industry still operating much as it did decades ago. While other sectors have adopted automation to improve speed and quality, construction remains dependent on manual execution and a shrinking pool of skilled labour. Experienced tradespeople are retiring faster than they can be replaced, forcing contractors to rely on undertrained labour. The result is systemic: installation errors, rework, material waste, and defects that often only surface once buildings are operational. At the same time, demand is accelerating with the great buildout of critical infrastructure, across energy systems, data centres, cold storage, factories and building retrofits. These environments are complex and unforgiving, and the gap between what the industry is asked to deliver and what its workforce can execute is widening every year. THE OPPORTUNITY We are building a vertically integrated robotics platform that delivers a core construction trade as an outcome. We're targeting a key segment that represents 30-50% of building capex, carries rework rates of 10-15%, and is structurally constrained by skilled labour supply across every major market. Rather than selling tools into a fragmented supply chain, we take ownership of execution end-to-end. Purpose-built hardware handles the physical work; a learned intelligence layer turns every deployment into training data, so the system generalises faster than hand-coded automation ever could. Owning the full process is also what makes the system compound. Every project becomes proprietary training data, feeding a feedback loop that point solutions and tool vendors cannot access. We are looking for a CTO and Co-Founder. You will join a stellar CEO who has over a decade of experience at the cutting edge of European construction. Most recently, he spent six years scaling a modular construction venture as Head of Projects and Partnerships, building a pan-European supply and delivery network from scratch, including convincing a manufacturer to retool their factory for industrialised construction and licensing the technology to a French partner coordinating five factories. He brings deep ties across the AEC and proptech ecosystem, warm pilot commitments, and is driving market validation and fundraising while looking for a technical co-founder to own everything from the hardware up. REQUIREMENTS We are looking for an entrepreneurial engineer who can design and build a physical robotic system for real-world deployment, and who sees beyond the hardware into the intelligence layer that will make the system compound in capability over time. Must-have: you have shipped hardware that works outside of a lab. The first year requires someone who already knows what breaks in the field. Bonus: you have opinions on where foundation models for robotics are heading and what that means for the stack you'd build today. Where you will likely start: - Hands-on ability to design, prototype, and iterate on robotic hardware: positioning, mechanical assemblies, end effectors, force control - A track record of deploying robotic or automated systems in real operational environments - Enough perception and localisation knowledge to integrate sensors, process spatial data, and close the loop between the physical platform and a digital model - Strong software architecture instincts and pragmatism about build-versus-partner trade-offs, including where to leverage foundation models and third-party APIs What you'll grow into: - Architecting the full intelligence layer: perception, spatial reasoning, task planning, feedback loops - Building the data architecture that turns every deployment into training data - Leading and scaling a technical team across hardware, software, and AI Examples of relevant backgrounds: - A robotics or mechatronics engineer from industrial automation, warehouse, agricultural, or mobile manipulation robotics, or a senior engineer from a first-wave robotics startup, who has owned a physical system end-to-end in a real operational environment and is ready to own the full stack on their next venture - A physical AI or robotics researcher with genuine hands-on hardware experience beyond simulation - An engineer from an adjacent field (autonomous vehicles, heavy machinery, mining, offshore, defence, aerospace) who has built real-time systems combining mechanical hardware with perception and planning Location: the Netherlands We encourage you to apply even if you don't feel you meet every requirement. Above all, we value intelligence, creativity, rapid learning, and the ability to bridge hardware and software to build a world-class product. WHAT WE OFFER You will, of course, have the opportunity to meet and work with them before making any big commitments! We offer (among other things) - A €3,000 monthly allowance during your participation in the programme - €250,000 inception funding at incorporation, if you are successful. You and your team will own 80% of the company at incorporation. - Full-stack support in our venture creation programme - Mentorship and guidance at every step of the way - Hands-on support across technology and market research, landing interviews with experts and customers, techno-economic modelling, roadmap and scale-up strategy, sourcing your future co-founders and advisors, and more - Access to an unparalleled network across science, industry, talent, investors, mentors, and other climate deeptech founders - Access to our research insights, knowledge base, and curated resources - Weekly check-ins, work sessions in our Paris HQ (or remote) and continuous peer learning with other programme participants - Seed fundraising support after the programme. Introductions to the best seed investors and help with term sheet negotiation. - Founder visa sponsorship if you wish to relocate to France. Remote participation would be a challenge, but we're open to finding different partnership formats. We believe that a diverse group of minds is key to solving the climate crisis. We encourage women and people of colour to apply. Studies have shown that under-represented candidates are less likely to apply for an opportunity unless they feel they meet every single qualification. We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and mission-driven cohort. If you’re excited about the programme but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with what you read on our website, we encourage you to apply anyways! FAQS For a full list of FAQs, please visit our website https://marble.studio/faq.