Former founding engineer at n8n joins Synera to help advance the company’s vision of an AI-powered engineering co-worker and scale the next generation of engineering software
Synera, the agentic AI platform for engineers designing and developing physical products, announced the appointment of Ben Hesseldieck as Head of Engineering. In the role, Ben will lead Synera’s software engineering organization, overseeing product development, engineering execution and technical strategy as the company enters its next phase of scaling agentic systems in live R&D operations.
Ben joins Synera at a pivotal moment for both the company and the broader automotive, aerospace, aviation, and defense industries. As AI reshapes how physical products are developed and how engineering work gets done, Synera is expanding its leadership team to accelerate development of its platform to advance its long-term vision of autonomous engineering co-workers capable of translating engineering intent into production-ready designs.
Time-to-market pressures across industries are surging demand for innovative solutions that move the needle on faster schedules without jeopardizing quality or safety, and AI is often considered the most promising solution. Synera is demonstrating that AI can deliver on that promise in real-world engineering environments. The most demanding engineering teams, from NASA to seven major corporations consistently ranked among the Fortune Global 500, rely on Synera, with more than 170,000 automation workflows already live and nearly 30 agentic engineering projects underway with Tier 1 suppliers, primes, and top OEMs. Six of the ten largest automakers by revenue are also among its customers, making Synera one of the few AI solutions with a demonstrated track record of delivering engineering output that meets requirements, is repeatable, and scales across live R&D operations.
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“Engineering is splitting into two layers. There is the requirement layer, where engineers decide what to build and why. And then there is the execution layer, or the computer-aided design updates, where the data is adjusted by hand between different tools. Almost half of engineering capacity currently goes into that repetitive second layer. That is the bottleneck, and it is now solvable,” said Daniel Siegel, Chief Product Officer at Synera. “The companies that win won’t simply adopt AI. They’ll fundamentally rethink those layers and how engineering work happens. Ben brings a rare combination of technical leadership excellence, international growth experience, and insight into what separates great technology organizations from the rest. He is exactly the right leader to help us accelerate the next phase of our product roadmap.”
Ben brings more than a decade of experience building enterprise and automation software. He was the founding engineer and fifth employee at n8n, where he helped build the open-source workflow automation platform from its earliest stages and scale the software engineering organization through rapid growth. During his tenure, n8n grew into one of the world’s most widely used workflow automation tools with a global community of hundreds of thousands of users.
Most recently, Ben served as Vice President of Technology and Engineering at Code & Co, where he led technical due diligence for growth-stage software companies. His work with founders, engineering leaders, and investors gives him a clear view of what enables engineering organizations to scale successfully.
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“Throughout my career, I’ve been drawn to opportunities where technology can fundamentally change how people work,” said Ben. “R&D engineering teams still spend too much time on repetitive work that diverts much needed capacity and doesn’t fully leverage their expertise. Synera is changing that with agents already live in R&D operations. The combination of the team’s vision, the technology they’re building, and the scale of the problem they’re solving is what made joining the team such an incredibly compelling opportunity.”
As Head of Engineering, Ben will join Synera’s leadership team and report directly to Daniel. His initial priorities will include scaling the software engineering organization, advancing the development of Synera Assistant, and expanding the use of AI throughout Synera’s own product development process.
Currently available in closed beta, Synera Assistant represents the next step in Synera’s broader effort to transform engineering processes through agentic AI. Designed to work alongside engineers, the Assistant helps users access product knowledge, build agents, generate custom automation capabilities, create 3D designs, and map engineering processes using natural language. Over time, Synera plans to expand these capabilities toward what the company describes as a JARVIS-like engineering assistant: a system capable of understanding intent, creating precise 3D geometries, executing CAx tools, orchestrating complex workflows, and helping translate ideas into production-ready designs. The company plans to launch Synera Assistant at the beginning of 2027.
