By Frances Wong

When I chose to study software engineering at university, I was 18 and my only career goal was to become a millionaire. My dad and brother were both engineers, I was good at maths and science, and someone told me that software engineers were paid well. So, it was an easy decision.

I graduated and landed myself a high paying grad job in finance. It was sick. We had every meal cooked for us by in-house chefs, the best views of the Sydney harbour (arguably the best office views in the world) and a really fun grad cohort who became some of my best friends. I had a smart, supportive manager and a cool team.

And I was finally a software engineer! Graduate software engineer, but nonetheless I was doing the thing. I sat at my desk 8 hours a day; writing, reading & reviewing code. That may sound fine (like duh obviously that’s what you’d be doing) but it got boring really quick for me. I learnt that I wasn’t that interested in solving complex technical problems for the sake of making a company more money. I really didn’t care about maybe improving our latency by a fraction of a percent.

Before long, I found myself taking up every opportunity to do anything other than my actual job. Do I want to do an internal shark tank pitch about a social walking group? Yes! Would I like to spend half a morning doing a spin class to raise money for charity? Well of course! I was crying to my boyfriend about what I was doing with my life (dramatic) and dreading Mondays - a bit of a quarter life crisis if you will.

So I quit my job & moved to Europe :)

I also paused the millionaire dream and set a new short term goal: try something different. I made my LinkedIn very broad, and honestly confusing, though soon enough found a message in my inbox from Monumental’s Chief of Staff, Dom. He was proposing a role as a Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer (FDRE) in a construction company. Interesting… I can’t say I felt super qualified coming from a software background in finance and insurance but it was definitely ticking the “do something different” box.

We started with a few intro calls and a fun, brick-themed take-home assignment. Then, about a week later I spent the day in the Monumental office for a final on-site. And wow, it was an office like I’d never seen before: brick walls being built, 3D printers running non-stop, and a whole workshop of people pumping out robots before my very eyes. Messy, yes, but full of energy. It was a really cool experience and the next morning, I got the offer.

When I joined, about a week later, there was a lot to learn. I started with operating the robots and built countless brick walls in the office and on site. Never in my life had I predicted that I would be in a hard hat, on a Dutch construction site, building someone’s house, but there I was and it was very fun. Alongside that, I learnt all about how the systems worked from an engineering perspective. This was a little daunting because I didn’t know the first thing about robotics but everyone in the R&D team was incredibly helpful. They were keen to share their knowledge so all I had to do was soak it up.

Building our first 3 story high wall

In less than a year, I’ve done so many different tasks and learnt a lot about how I like to work and what I like to work on. Currently, I’m leading an R&D team focussed on surfacing, prioritising and fixing the most important problems we discover with our product on site, and helping to roll out R&D efforts to site. My role is a real mix of software engineering, product management and process management. For other FDREs, they enjoy software engineering more so they do a lot more of that. I also spend a day or two per week on site unblocking builds, trying out new R&D, and getting insight into how our systems are performing.

These are my favourite things about my job:

1. I have a real sense of purpose. We are already building homes that families will live in for hundreds of years. I get to be on site, watching that happen. I also have a direct influence on shaping a product that is going to make housing much more affordable and beautiful than it is today.
2. My work is incredibly varied and I am given the trust and autonomy to figure out how I can best contribute. I am learning so much in domains I never thought I would: hardware, electronics, computer vision, scaling companies, construction, masonry, site logistics, inventory management, safety protocols, working outside in Dutch weather - the list goes on.
3. I don’t sit inside at a desk all day. I get up, I go outside, I watch robots, I operate robots, I climb ladders, I carry bricks, it’s great!

My new office views

Bday flowers

It’s probably obvious by now, but I think the FDRE role is really special and one where you can have outsized impact. Being so in touch with the current state of our product and the workflow of robot operators, gives you a distinct edge over R&D engineers. You build a really solid intuition for how product changes will impact the quality of our walls and efficiency of our systems, and you know exactly how to integrate new features into the operator workflow so that they actually get used.

If this also sounds exciting to you, we’re hiring! Read more about the job here.