Head of People & Performance
Job Location:
Amsterdam - Netherlands
Monthly Salary:
Posted on:
Vacancies:
Job Summary
Were a growing team (about 100 team members) of mostly engineers and technicians coming from companies like Palantir Qualcomm Dyson Shopify Tesla Meta and 1X. Its still the early 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 youll 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. You might also enjoy seeing this video by Andreas Klinger of what our office environment looks like.
About You and This Role
Were hiring our first Head of People & Performance to own how we attract develop and stretch our team as Monumental grows from around 100 people to several hundred over the next few years. Youll work as an extension of the founders: someone who gets the most out of everyone and scales the judgment they currently carry in their own heads.
Monumental is a unique company in that were solving on-site construction with a vertically integrated offering. Were a hard tech company doing real R&D financed through venture funding. We manufacture our hardware in-house run a fully equipped workshop manage a complex supply chain and deploy masonry robots to construction sites across the Netherlands and the UK.
Youll own the people side of how Monumental performs: who we hire how we develop them how we run our performance and equity cycles and how we keep the bar high as the company grows. Our day-to-day people operations are already covered so your job sits one layer above that working directly with the founders and the leadership team.
This is a hands-on operator role. Like everyone at Monumental youll pick up the projects with the biggest priority at any given moment - the special projects that often span several teams and dont yet have an owner. One month that might mean standing up our performance and equity cycles; the next it might mean scoping how a new function should be staffed reading where a team is overstretched or untangling a problem that doesnt belong to anyone yet.
The loudest internal conversations at Monumental are about how to do better work and youll help keep them there. You reach for direct contact and local knowledge over standardized process and you distrust schemes that try to make people legible by flattening them.
You should be obsessed with talent. You care more about whether a junior engineer is being stretched than whether the handbook is up to date. You can sit down with anyone in the company - software workshop ops - and walk away knowing what theyre building and whats blocking them.
What You Might Be Working On
Special projects. Like everyone at Monumental you pick up the work with the biggest priority wherever it happens to sit. Some of these are squarely people problems and many arent. Youll move across software workshop operations and the deployment teams take on the high-priority project that needs an owner and see it through before moving to the next thing that matters most.
Turning team strengths into a hiring plan. Youll build a real read on where each team is strong and where its thin and turn that into who we hire next - especially as we work to strengthen the hardware side of the company. Youll partner with the founders on the senior hires that matter most where youll have a genuine view on whether someone will thrive here rather than only on whether the process ran cleanly. And youll help scope which projects each person takes on so our best people are consistently pointed at our most important problems.
Talent spotting internal and external. Finding the people whod thrive at Monumental before anyone else has and pulling a high-potential operator out of a deployment and into a role that fits them better. Youll build spot great people into how the whole company works.
Performance cycles. Twice a year with ad-hoc adjustments for exceptional growth. Youll own how reviews actually happen here: the conversations managers run with their teams how we calibrate across them and how cash and equity decisions tie back. Predictable enough to be fair and loose enough that an exceptional contribution doesnt wait six months to be recognised.
Equity and compensation philosophy. A clearer framework for refreshers comp bands and how we think about cash versus equity at different levels so that real ownership is felt across the team rather than only at the top.
Coaching managers. Especially first-time managers and IC-strong technical leads who havent yet learned how to give direct timely feedback. You coach them to have the conversation; you dont have it for them.
Supporting people who are struggling. Spotting the early signal and making sure people get the feedback they need to course-correct. These are the conversations companies our size habitually delay and you make sure they happen with care.
Soft 1:1s redesigned. Our current cadence is stretched. Youll run a subset of these yourself and design the system that makes the rest happen well.
Scaling the people experience. As we grow past 100 some of the systems that worked on day one start to break - perks spending freedom onboarding and more. You move on whats actually needed and resist adding policy for its own sake.
Leading the People team including all of its future hires.
What were looking for
Experience building and managing high-performing teams. Youve ideally founded a company operated very close to founders in a small-to-mid-stage startup or led a high-performance team in another demanding context - sports military performing arts or similar. Youve taken a team from 0 to 1 and developed individual contributors into leaders.
A problem-solver first and foremost. You can take an ambiguous high-priority project that doesnt yet belong to anyone scope it and drive it to a result. This operator instinct matters to us as much as the people instinct.
Numerate without being reductive. You can reason about performance and pay in numbers and hold a high bar with data while refusing to flatten people into a spreadsheet. You know which calls need a clear measure and which need you in the room.
Suspicious of policy as a default mode. You dont think the answer to most problems is a new rule.
Genuinely curious about peoples work not wellbeing in the abstract.
An instinct to connect people across departments. You spot where someone in Software could unlock something for Workshop or vice versa and you make it happen.
High personal intensity. You set the standard through action not framework documents. You dont block anyone.
You can run a 1:1 that someone walks out of energised. You can also have the harder conversations kindly.
Comfortable in a technical environment. You dont need to code but you should enjoy understanding what an engineer is building.
You introduce structure without killing startup feel.
You can read the legal framework we operate in - bad-leaver events long-term sick leave contracts and offboarding in the Dutch context. You dont need to be a lawyer but you should know when to call one.
A Day 1 culture fit with minimal steering needed.
Plus: comfortable with the people side of physical industries - the safety questions cultural dynamics and on-site realities of manufacturing and construction work. Or youll close that gap fast.
Fluent in English; Dutch is a plus but not required.
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 youre 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 dont see an exact role match) please reach out to us at: - tell us about a moment where you saw something that needed fixing and you just fixed it without waiting for permission or checking if it was your job. What was it and what did you do
If you dont meet all the qualifications here but are excited about Monumental and feel youd 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.
Required Experience:
Director
