Construction & Engineering — Bouwkunde / Industrial Design Internship

Farmless; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 6,700 - 13,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

In-house gym

Team events and off-sites

Drinks on site

Job summary

Farmless is transforming an industrial building into a protein factory, seeking a hands-on student in Bouwkunde or Industrial Design to help with renovation and installation on site.

You’ll measure, update layouts, coordinate with engineers and contractors, and translate requirements into buildable solutions on the floor. The role is mission-driven, with practical problem solving and real responsibility, not just drawings.

Qualifications

• Studying Bouwkunde, Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering or similar.
• Comfortable thinking about buildings, equipment and physical systems.
• Like execution and seeing it built on site.
• Able to work in CAD and interpret technical drawings.

Responsibilities

• Help build our new factory on site during renovation and conversion of an industrial site into a functioning food-production facility.
• Measure the building, update layouts and translate engineering requirements into buildable drawings.
• Collaborate with the engineering team on equipment placement, utilities, routing, access and workflows.
• Coordinate work on site with contractors and installers, answer practical questions and keep items moving.
• Solve on-site issues by adjusting plans, breaking down barriers, and proposing practical solutions.
• Prepare spaces, utilities and infrastructure for installation and commissioning, and support post-installation problem-solving.
• Tackle non-scale tasks, sometimes requiring hands-on actions like adjusting walls or routing pipes.

Skills

CAD

3D modelling

On-site coordination

Measurement

Construction coordination

Education

Bouwkunde / Industrial Design / Mechanical Engineering (student)

Tools

AutoCAD

Revit

SolidWorks

Fusion 360

Job description

The role

We’re turning an existing industrial building into our next protein factory, and we’re looking for a hands‑on Bouwkunde, Industrial Design or similarly technical student to help us build it.

This is a brownfield project, which means very little starts from a blank sheet of paper. Existing walls, utilities, structures and installations all have to meet new equipment, new processes and a very different use of the building. A lot of the work is figuring out how to make those pieces fit together and then making sure they actually get built.

You’ll work closely with our technical operations and engineering teams, but this is not an internship where you spend six months behind a laptop making drawings. You’ll be on site, taking measurements, preparing work, checking progress, answering contractor questions or even coordinate construction people on the floor.

One morning you might be updating a factory layout, the next coordinating a contractor installing new flooring, drains or power lines, and by the afternoon solving on‑site issues when reality doesn’t match the drawings.

We’re looking for someone who enjoys thinking through difficult physical problems, but gets even more satisfaction from solving them together and seeing the result actually built.

What you’ll do

• Help build our new factory. Work hands‑on on the renovation and conversion of an existing industrial site into a functioning food‑production facility.

• Turn messy reality into drawings. Measure the building, update layouts and help translate engineering requirements into something we can actually build.

• Figure out where everything goes. Collaborate with the engineering team on equipment placement, utilities, routing, access, storage and workflows and all the other spatial puzzles that appear when designing a real production site.

• Coordinate work on site. Help contractors and installers understand what needs to happen, answer practical questions, follow up on open items and keep work moving.

• Solve physical problems. Existing buildings have columns in inconvenient places, doors that are too small and utilities that end exactly where you don’t want them. You’ll help find practical solutions.

• Prepare for installation and commissioning. Help make sure spaces, utilities and infrastructure are ready before equipment arrives, and support the inevitable problem‑solving once installation starts.

• Do stuff that doesn’t scale. Sometimes the solution is a new drawing. Sometimes it’s literally breaking down a wall, moving a steel frame by hand, or rerouting a pipe because it turns out the drawing was wrong.

What we’re looking for

• You’re studying Bouwkunde, Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering or something adjacent. The exact degree matters less than whether you’re comfortable thinking about buildings, equipment and physical systems.

• You like execution. You don’t want to hand over a drawing and disappear. You want to see whether it works, help people build it and fix it when reality turns out differently.

• You can work in CAD. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should be comfortable making and interpreting technical drawings. Experience with 3D modelling is a plus.

• You have practical judgement. You notice when something doesn’t make sense and would rather walk over, measure it and talk to the people doing the work than make assumptions from behind a desk.

• You take ownership. We’ll give you real problems, not perfectly packaged assignments. You’re comfortable figuring out what you need to know and finding the right person when you get stuck.

• You’re good with people. Building things requires engineers, contractors, suppliers and colleagues to work together. You can communicate clearly, follow up without being awkward about it and keep things moving.

• Low ego, high curiosity. You’re happy working on a factory layout one hour and sorting out something extremely mundane the next.

• This is a mission, not just an internship. The possibility of building a radically more sustainable way to produce food genuinely excites you.

Bonus points

• You’ve worked on a renovation, construction or workshop project before.

• You know your way around AutoCAD, Revit, SolidWorks, Fusion 360 or similar tools.

• You’ve designed or built physical things outside university.

• You know something about building services, HVAC, piping, utilities, electrical installations or industrial equipment.

• You can make a good render, prototype, technical drawing or fabrication model.

• You can weld, machine, 3D print, build furniture, fix bikes, wire things up or have some other unexpectedly useful practical skill.

What you’ll get

• A real factory project rather than a hypothetical university assignment: You'll learn how an industrial project is delivered end to end.

• The chance to work alongside engineers and experienced contractors and learn how different disciplines come together in a real industrial project.

• Work together with the founder and have serious responsibility and the chance to see decisions go from sketch to construction.

• A flat, fast‑moving team where interns work on actual problems.

• Daily plant‑based lunch, snacks, fruit and drinks.

• An in‑house gym, team sports, off‑sites and drinks.

What we’re building

We’re going beyond the limiting constraints of photosynthesis.

We use natural fermentation to turn simple ingredients into complex proteins. It’s what we've been doing for millennia with wine, beer, bread and yoghurt.

Yet most fermentations rely on sugars - which are derived from crops grown on agricultural land. Our fermentation platform relies on an easily storable and shippable renewable energy based feedstock. This allows us to break free from the limiting constraints of photosynthesis.

What we are building is the spiritual successor to the Haber‑Bosch process. While Haber‑Bosch led to cheap synthetic fertilizer which currently feeds half of humanity, we have found a way to produce amino acid complete proteins up to ±5000X more land efficient than animals. By rough approximation this could multiply the carrying capacity of the earth by an order of magnitude. The result of our ambition should be visible from space.

About us

We’re a small, highly technical and deeply curious team with deep food and fermentation expertise with backgrounds from The Vegetarian Butcher and Perfect Day to Lanzatech and many more.

We’re flat and interdisciplinary by design. We value autonomy, speed, and ambition. You’ll have the freedom to build, and the responsibility to do it well.

We’re based within the city ring of Amsterdam – for a reason. We want to attract the best people from around the world and believe that Amsterdam is a great place to settle – and bike to work. On top of that, the Netherlands is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The Dutch have a mindset to push the boundaries of food production and have the practical expertise to scale up our fermentation platform.

We believe hardware startups can thrive in Europe. If we can get approval here, we can do it anywhere (and we want Europe to accelerate).

We’ve raised +€10M from world‑class investors including World Fund, Vorwerk Ventures, Revent, and Nucleus Capital, and European and national grants.