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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. 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 Business Operations Intern, you'll play a key role in keeping our growing organization structured and running smoothly. You'll work closely with the Chief Operating Officer, Business Operations Coordinator, Project Managers and the wider team, helping with the day-to-day operations that keep our company moving and contributing to the systems that will help us scale.
This role has a strong project-operations focus: you will act as a central point of coordination, ensuring tasks, timelines, and dependencies are clearly tracked and executed.
This internship is ideal for a student who enjoys taking initiative, bringing structure to chaos, and driving execution through clear tracking and follow-ups, and learning how a fast-paced deep-tech startup operates behind the scenes.
A big part of this role is ensuring we procure and receive hardware on time for pilot projects and customer commitments.
Your responsibilities include:
- Become our "deal hunter" for critical hardware: You'll scout suppliers/marketplaces (incl. Alibaba), request quotes, sanity-check specs/MOQs, and compare vendors on price, lead time, and reliability, then help us land great deals (within guidelines).
- Make sure the right parts arrive on time: You'll help run orders end-to-end (placing orders, tracking shipments, updating ETAs) and keep a simple procurement tracker so the team always knows what's coming, when, and what's at risk.
- Connect procurement to real project timelines: You'll work with the team to prioritize purchases based on the production plan and pilot/customer commitments, and you'll proactively flag bottlenecks early.
- Keep hiring moving (fast): You'll coordinate profile reviews, keep our hiring tool/database clean and up to date, chase feedback, and help interview panels run smoothly (agendas, reminders, follow-ups).
- Build small systems that scale: You'll document what you learn, improve workflows, and turn chaos into clarity with lightweight process improvements. You bring structure by defining clear owners, timelines, and next actions across workflows.
- Act as a lightweight project manager across operations: track progress, follow up with stakeholders, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
- The existing procurement tracker is optimized, and used by the team (status, owners, lead times, ETAs, next actions).
- Orders for pilot/customer hardware are placed on time with clear ETA tracking and proactive escalations when risks arise.
- The hiring pipeline is up to date and feedback turnaround times improve (fewer stalled candidates).
- Key operational workflows have clear ownership, timelines, and visibility (no ambiguity on "who does what by when").
- You are proactively following up with stakeholders instead of waiting for updates.
- Currently studying Business Administration, Operations, Finance, Innovation Management, or a related field.
- Strong organizational and communication skills, you like things structured and clear.
- Proactive, hands-on attitude, you take initiative and get things done.
- Comfortable working with spreadsheets, reports, and documents.
- Fluent in English (Dutch is a plus).
- Excited to learn how a deep-tech startup runs from the inside.
- You don't need to have prior startup experience: Curiosity, motivation, and ownership matter most.
- Strong sense of ownership over timelines and deliverables; you naturally follow up and close loops.
- Comfortable coordinating across multiple stakeholders and keeping workstreams aligned.
- 750 euro monthly compensation.
- 10 vacation days during internship period.
- (Really) flexible working hours.
- Real exposure to both behind-the-scenes operations in a highly innovative startup environment.
- Responsibility over the things you own
- 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 that includes a few situational questions. This isn't a technical test, but an opportunity to talk through a real operational scenario and see how you think and communicate.
- 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!
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