
Fiducial · Delft
TL;DR: We build the software behind our autonomous flight systems, plus a surprising amount of the supporting software around it. This role is for the people wh...
TL;DR: We build the software behind our autonomous flight systems, plus a surprising amount of the supporting software around it.
This role is for the people who want to build the latter.
Preferred starting date: ASAP
Weekly availability: full-time (5 days/week)
Fiducial is a young but fast-growing deep-tech start-up with big ambitions at the frontier of autonomy, perception, and defence.
We develop and deploy software for on-board UAV 3D vision in military applications. Our software solutions are built for
scalability first, using low-cost and widely available sensors and compute.
We develop our software in the field and close to the points of use. Flight testing is key for what we do and we test all across
Europe. Our team members have strong academic background in different fields such as Aerospace Engineering, Computational Science
and Engineering, Robotics and Computer Graphics. Our main office is located in the TU Delft campus in the faculty of Aerospace
Engineering.
We work closely with top-tier partners, ranging from drone manufacturers to research institutes. Our projects span from orders in
collaboration with operational partners to low-TRL research with government agencies. Whether through formal R&D programs or rapid
prototyping tracks, we operate at the intersection of innovation and deployment.
You will build the internal tools, shared libraries, and product-supporting infrastructure the rest of the company runs on. You
reach for Python, Rust, C++, or the browser depending on the problem. You drop into an unfamiliar domain and form strong
architectural opinions within a week. You’d rather understand a problem deeply than be handed a spec.
We build fast, and we expect fluency with vibe coding as a core, daily skill. We expect you to use these tools to get from a
well-understood problem to sound, working software quickly. You also know their failure modes: you read the code you ship, and you
own its correctness and architecture.
Python + web.
that normal deployment tooling falls over.
way most application code never has to think about.
models learn from.
so regressions are caught the moment they land.
You embed with the team you’re building for. You ship them something early and then keep working next to them as it evolves and as
you discover the shape of the final solution jointly. Concretely, for the examples above:
been living with it.
change.
to annotating to find the next one.
The empathy you earn on the ground is what lets you build the right thing, fast. Software Generalists build the tool the team
didn’t know how to ask for. If doing someone else’s job for a week, then coming back a week later to watch them use what you built
sounds energizing, this role is for you.
down the hall, sometimes the users of our products. You sit with them, watch where they stumble, and find usability friction.
"Done" means someone’s job got easier.
things: the unfamiliar codebase or domain, and the unfamiliar human workflow underneath it.
and how it will need to grow. You tend to pre-build the next feature request, because you know the user well enough to see it.
languages as tools you pick up as needed rather than as an identity. You don’t need mastery of all of them on day one, you need
to be someone who becomes competent in a new one fast.
time and bytes go, and you reach for a profiler by reflex. A computer graphics or game-development background is a real plus.
Other work barely touches any of it, and you can tell the difference and right-size your effort accordingly.
technology.
We are innovating, learning is to be expected.
this can be a resume, website or other source, as long as we get a clear impression of your background and skills.
Based on your answers, we’ll invite you for a technical interview. This interview is an opportunity to talk through a real
problem/scenario and show us you think and communicate.
OPENING WE CANNOT PROVIDE VISA SPONSORSHIP DETAILS Preferred starting date: ASAP Weekly availability: full-time on-site (5 days/week) Location: Delft, the Netherlands ABOUT THE COMPANY Fiducial is a young but fast-growing deep-tech start-up with big ambitions at the frontier of autonomy, perception, and defence. Currently, we are developing software for advanced on-board UAV situational awareness in military applications. Using low-cost and widely available sensors and compute, our solutions are built for scalability. From there, we plan to develop a line-up of interconnected solutions to safeguard European safety. Our team consists of engineers that are passionate about the technology and solutions they develop. The only time most of us are not thinking about the technology is when we are asleep, and sometimes even then. Our team members have a background in different fields such as Aerospace Engineering, Computational Science and Engineering, Robotics and Computer Graphics. Our office is located in the Aerospace Innovation Hub, a start-up hub located on the TU Delft campus in the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. We work closely with top-tier partners, ranging from government agencies and prime contractors to academic research institutes and other start-ups. Our projects span from large tender orders in collaboration with partners to low TRL research with government agencies. Whether through formal R&D programs or rapid prototyping tracks, we operate at the intersection of innovation and deployment. YOUR ROLE As our People Operations Lead, you will take ownership of our People Operations foundation and help us improve it as we scale: onboarding, contracts, employee records, HR workflows, hiring operations, manager support, and employee relations. You will report directly to the COO and work closely with leadership to make our people practices clearer, more consistent, and more scalable. This is a hands-on improvement and scaling role. We already have the basic foundations in place, but they need to become more reliable, structured, and easier to run as the company grows. In the short term, you will bring stronger consistency, follow-through, documentation, and ownership to day-to-day people operations. In the longer term, you will help shape how People Operations scales with the company. We are looking for someone with the ambition and judgment to grow with us, strengthen lightweight people systems, and eventually help design the People team we need for the next stage. Our base is in the Netherlands, but our team is increasingly distributed. You will help us improve practical, compliant people practices that work across the Netherlands and other European countries, coordinating with the right internal owners and external advisors where needed. We are an AI-first technical startup using tools such as Notion, Ashby, Slack, ChatGPT, and AI agents. You do not need to be technical, but you should be tech-savvy, structured, and curious about using modern tools to make People Operations faster, clearer, and less manual. This role is for someone who has worked in a startup or scale-up before, loves improving messy-but-functional systems, and wants to make people infrastructure more reliable without slowing the company down with unnecessary bureaucracy. Key responsibilities PEOPLE OPERATIONS FOUNDATION * Build and run core People Operations processes across the employee lifecycle. * Own workflows for contracts, onboarding, offboarding, employee records, HRIS/data hygiene, policies, and documentation. * Manage probation tracking and make sure managers hold timely review conversations. * Maintain and improve the employee handbook and core people documentation. * Work closely with Finance on payroll, employment cost tracking, and related approvals, coordinating with external advisors where needed. * Identify people risks early and escalate clearly to the COO and leadership team. HIRING, RECRUITMENT, AND DISTRIBUTED EMPLOYMENT * Support hiring managers with role setup, interview process, candidate communication, offer workflows, and hiring process discipline. * Work closely with technical recruiters on niche talent sourcing, candidate pipeline quality, hiring priorities, interview process, and offer coordination. * Support remote and international hiring, including employment, payroll, contract, relocation, and onboarding approaches for hires in other European countries. * Coordinate 30% ruling applications for eligible employees in the Netherlands with external advisors. * Ensure our people processes are grounded in Dutch employment practices while scalable enough for a distributed European team. PEOPLE SYSTEMS, TOOLING, AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT * Improve our trackers, templates, checklists, dashboards, and operating rhythms for people processes. * Turn ambiguous people operations problems into practical workflows with clear owners, timelines, and next steps. * Drive follow-through across managers, hiring teams, external advisors, and internal stakeholders. * Use tools such as Notion, Ashby, HRIS platform, Slack, ChatGPT, and AI agents to reduce manual work and improve visibility. * Gradually help build lightweight processes for performance reviews, salary reviews, role clarity, and future People function scaling. WHAT WE EXPECT FROM YOU We are looking for a pragmatic, hands-on, highly structured People generalist who can create order without creating bureaucracy. You are likely a strong fit if you have: * 5–10 years of HR generalist, People Operations, or HR operations experience in the Netherlands. * Experience in an international startup, scale-up, or fast-changing environment. * Experience supporting remote or distributed teams, with a strong ability to figure out employment practices in other European countries. * Strong knowledge of international hiring practices and the employee lifecycle: onboarding, contracts, HR administration, employee relations, performance support, and offboarding. * Excellent documentation, process-building, and follow-up discipline. * Strong project management instincts: you know how to create owners, timelines, trackers, and next steps. * A builder mindset: you like creating useful systems, not just maintaining existing ones. * The confidence to push back constructively and hold people to agreed processes. * Interest in growing with the company and eventually helping build a broader People team. Bonus points if you: * Have experience in a deeptech, high-tech, AI, robotics, aerospace, defence, hardware, or engineering-led startup. * Are tech-savvy and comfortable with tools such as Notion, Slack, HRIS platforms, Ashby, ChatGPT, and AI agents. * Have built lightweight workflows, templates, databases, dashboards, or automations. * Are curious about how AI can improve hiring, onboarding, HR documentation, manager support, and people operations. You should believe that good People Operations is not about adding bureaucracy. It is about creating clarity, fairness, consistency, and better management. We especially value people who can: * Keep processes lightweight and useful. * Balance empathy with accountability. * Push back constructively when needed. * Help first-time managers become better leaders. * Work independently without needing a fully established People structure. * Build people practices that work for both Dutch-based employees and distributed European team members. * Move between hands-on execution and longer-term people system design. WHAT WE OFFER * Money of course. * 25 vacation days per year. * Reimbursed travel expenses and company laptop. * Flexible working hours. * A hands-on environment where your work will directly improve how the company operates. * A chance to build the People function from the ground up and grow with the company. * The opportunity to shape the future People team, not just operate existing processes. * A fast-moving, mission-driven technical startup environment. * A culture that values ownership, autonomy, direct communication, and practical problem-solving. THE APPLICATION PROCEDURE * If after reading the above you are convinced you are the right person for the job, send us some information about yourself; this can be a resume, website or other source, as long as we get a clear impression of your background and skills. * We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If we see a potential fit, you’ll first receive a short follow-up questionnaire. Based on your answers, we’ll invite you for an interview. This interview is an opportunity to talk through a real problem/scenario and show us you think and communicate. * If at this point we feel you are the person we are looking for, we’ll discuss the specifics. * Welcome to the team!
ABOUT US QuantWare is building the world’s most powerful quantum processors to solve humanity's greatest challenges. We do this with our unique VIO™ technology, the only QPU architecture that breaks the hardware barriers that have held quantum computing back, unlocking the path to MegaQubit quantum processors. With VIO, we are paving the way for the hyper-scale quantum computers that will change the world. And delivering on that vision demands people who don’t shy away from tackling the hardest challenges of our time. That’s where you come in! Superconducting Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) require sophisticated classical software to characterise, calibrate and run quantum applications. At QuantWare, our software stack is a critical part of QPU development, manufacturing, and deployment, enabling the rapid advancement of quantum hardware. QuantWare is looking for an exceptional Software Manager to drive our software development. In this role, you will own our calibration software roadmap and manage, grow and develop a team of experts in quantum devices and software engineering. What You’ll Be Doing Core Responsibilities * Own the development roadmap: Own and project manage our calibration software development roadmap. Set clear engineering milestones, enable the team to work efficiently, and maintain transparent progress reporting. * Recruit and develop the Team: Lead the recruitment and growth of a multidisciplinary, high-performing team of senior software engineers and quantum device specialists. Establish production-grade software engineering practices, testing frameworks, and contribution models. * Architect the software: Drive long-term architectural strategy, including the high-level software package structure and the design of clean hardware abstraction layers. * Ecosystem Collaboration: Drive technical collaboration, integration and data hands-offs with third parties. Your Profile * Experience: 5+ years of professional software leadership experience, with a proven track record of architecting, delivering, and maintaining production-grade software; ideally interfacing with physical hardware, instrumentation, or complex scientific systems. * Leadership & Hiring: Proven engineering management background with demonstrated success recruiting, mentoring, and retaining senior software engineers and domain specialist engineers in a fast-paced environment. * Technical Proficiency: Deep expertise in the Python ecosystem, modern software architecture principles, modular package structure, and third-party interfacing. * Cross-Functional Communication: Excellent leadership and communication skills, with a proven ability to collaborate with scientific domain experts. * Domain expertise: Any experience with (superconducting) quantum computing hardware or a closely related field is considered a plus. Don't tick every box? Apply anyway. We know great candidates don't always follow a straight path, and we value diverse experience, perspectives, and ways of thinking. If this role excites you and you believe you can make an impact, we'd love to hear from you! What We Offer: At QuantWare, you’ll be part of a high-performing team of world-class experts in an ambitious, fast-moving environment. From day one, you’ll have the trust, tools, and support to do your best work. Here’s what you can expect: Competitive salary - A salary that reflects the impact and importance of the role (and of course 8% holiday allowance) Pension that’s built to last - A generous and future-proof pension plan that includes partner and dependent coverage. Flexibility built on trust - We focus on outcomes. Work flexibly, in a hybrid setup, with an open vacation policy that lets you manage your time Personal growth - We invest in your L&D, with a budget available to each team member, dependent on their individual ambitions, development needs, and performance A connected team - We make space to celebrate wins together, with team events, offsites, and spontaneous moments that bring us closer Diversity & Inclusion at QuantWare We’re an ambitious company, not only for our goals but also to become an even more diverse and inclusive team. We know this helps us with better decisions, more innovation, and strengthens our culture. In particular, we’d love to see more women in the quantum industry! So if you’re a female talent, excited about this opportunity but don’t meet every single requirement, we still encourage you to apply. As part of our recruitment process, candidates may be required to undergo pre-employment screening.
OPENING WE CANNOT PROVIDE VISA SPONSORSHIP DETAILS Preferred starting date: ASAP Weekly availability: full-time (5 days/week) Period: 6 months Location: Aerospace Innovation Hub, Delft, the Netherlands ABOUT THE COMPANY Fiducial is a young but fast-growing deep-tech start-up with big ambitions at the frontier of autonomy, perception, and defence. Our core expertise lies in 3D vision and graphics technologies which we deploy in a dual-use context for inspection and defence. This role will initially focus mainly on the defence context where we are developing software for advanced on-board UAV situational awareness in military applications. Our solutions are aimed to operate with low-cost and widely available sensors and compute. From there, we plan to develop a line-up of interconnected solutions to safeguard European safety. Our team consists of engineers that are passionate about the technology and solutions they develop. The only time most of us are not thinking about the technology is when we are asleep, and sometimes even then. Our team members have a background in different fields such as Aerospace Engineering, Computational Science and Engineering, Robotics, and Computer Graphics. Our office is located in the Aerospace Innovation Hub, a start-up hub located on the TU Delft campus in the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. We work closely with top-tier partners, ranging from government agencies and prime contractors to academic research institutes and other start-ups. Our projects span from large tender orders in collaboration with partners, low TRL research with government agencies, to direct collaboration with military units. Whether through formal R&D programs or rapid prototyping tracks, we operate at the intersection of innovation and deployment. YOUR ROLE You will work in our team of experienced 3D vision engineers, 3D computer graphics engineers, and controls and robotics engineers. You will not just work on some unimportant side project but you might actually build key parts of solutions that will be used by our customers and partners. Activities include: * Contributing to the development and tuning of guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) algorithms for autonomous flight, including takeoff, landing, and waypoint following. * Assisting in integrating control and navigation modules with perception and state estimation systems. * Using simulation environments (SITL/HIL) to test and validate flight control behavior before hardware deployment. * Reviewing and interpreting flight logs and telemetry to help assess control performance and identify issues. * Working closely with hardware and flight test teams to configure and calibrate UAV platforms. * Supporting flight test campaigns through setup, monitoring, and post-flight data analysis. * Helping improve internal tools for simulation, control diagnostics, and flight visualization. * Learning from and collaborating with senior engineers to iterate between simulation and real-world testing and continuously improve flight performance. WHAT WE EXPECT FROM YOU * Foundational understanding of flight dynamics, control theory, and real-time systems. * Hands-on experience (academic, hobby, or project-based) designing control loops for UAVs or similar dynamic systems. * Familiarity with flight control stacks such as PX4, Ardupilot, or other open-source autopilots. * Strong programming skills in C++ or Python. * Awareness of state estimation and filtering concepts (e.g., sensor fusion, complementary filters, or EKF basics). * Comfort working with UAV simulators or an eagerness to learn SITL/HIL testing workflows. * Curiosity and motivation to learn quickly, explore new areas, and seek guidance when needed. * A hands-on attitude, persistence, and enthusiasm for building and improving real flying systems. * Full-time availability (40 hours). WHAT CAN WE OFFER * 1000 euro monthly compensation. * 10 vacation days during internship period. * (Really) flexible working hours and option to work from home 2 days per week. * Have a direct and significant influence on highly innovative products. * The opportunity to iterate quickly with tight feedback loops, close to the product. We are innovating, learning is to be expected. * Responsibility over the things you implement, you are the expert on what you build. THE APPLICATION PROCEDURE * If after reading the above you are convinced you are the right person for the job, send us some information about yourself; this can be a resume, website or other source, as long as we get a clear impression of your background and skills. * We’ll get back to you ASAP. If we feel you could be a fit for the position, we’ll invite you for an informal introduction so we can get to know you, and equally important, you can get to know us. After this, a technical focused interview could follow. * If at this point we feel you are the person we are looking for, we’ll discuss the specifics (starting date and period). * Welcome to the team!