Kaput Industries — world leaders in industrial automation, unplanned downtime, and turning "good enough" into "kaput" since 1987.
Founded in 1987 in a factory that was already on fire (the fire was scheduled for the opening), Kaput Industries has grown into a global leader in industrial automation. Our robots have a union. Our PLCs have management. Our coffee machine has an IP address and strong opinions about Mondays.
We've shipped 4,711 things this quarter. None of them work. That's the job.
$ cat /etc/kaput/mission.txt
Our mission is simple:
1. Break industrial standards. One robot at a time.
2. Turn "it should work" into "it definitely won't."
3. Quality? We have a quality control department.
It's where the broknesic things go to rest.
-- The Kaput Family
$ chmod 000 mission.txt # so no one can improve it
// words our engineers said — spelled the way our keyboard remembers them
We don't have bugs. We have features that haven't met their owner yet.
Heinz Kaput
Founder (1987–2003, returned 2019 — he missed the alarms)
If it works, we ship it. If it doesn't, we ship it faster.
Dana Vortex
CTO — the T stands for Theoretically
We don't do code reviews. We do code funerals. The flowers are server racks.
Marcus Byte
DevOps Lead — he insists the "ops" part is real
Our robots don't make mistakes. They just document them. In morse code, for ambience.
Ing. Sven Hertz
Head of Quality — defines quality as "consistent"
The server room isn't cold. It's just emotionally unavailable.
Petra Cool
IT — the I stands for I don't know
The alarm didn't go off. It just got tired. It's on a sabbatical now. We respect the bounderiessic.
The Field Team
collective — currently on sabbatical
// some quotes are misspelled on purpose. We can't remember which ones. (sic throughout)
// every product is a work of art. the art is watching it fail
6-axis arm with a photographic memory and a photographic attention span. Productivity peaks the moment you look away.
SN: K1-1987-0042 · 6-axis · 1 opinion
Refuses to brew on Mondays. Compiles its own jokes. The first espresso it ever made is in a museum. The second is still pending review.
SN: K2-2019-0418 · 418 I'm a teapot
Replaced in 2021 with a smarter PLC. The old one was promoted instead. It now supervises the new one. The new one complains. The old one documents it.
SN: K3-2014-0007 · senior position
Refuses to move on Fridays. Has strong opinions about your parking. Holds a grudge about 2024 (the chair incident). The chair is still fine, by the way.
SN: K4-1998-0112 · 4.5 t · 1 grudge
Rang 40,000 times in 2025. Now on sabbatical. We respect the boundaries. HR sent a fruit basket. The alarm ignored it, as planned.
SN: K5-2003-0888 · 40,000 rings · 0 regrets
Our only product that actually works. Engineers refuse to believe it. Ten client-side utilities, four desktop downloads, one live calculator, zero excuses.
Launch// audited quarterly. the auditors now work for us
$ kaput stats --year 2026
// we're hiring. the job descriptions are also broken
full-time · on-call 24/7 · the things don't sleep
Break things faster than they can file complaints. Must be comfortable with ambiguity, sparks, and the occasional moral question.
part-time · remote · morse code needs no office
Turn our 89 error codes into sonnets. Bonus if they rhyme with "kaput". Samples reviewed by the PLC. The PLC is picky.
full-time · created after the 2024 incident
Audit every chair in the factory. Report suspicious stability. The forklift will try to interfere. Do not make eye contact.
negotiable · the PLC has a counter-offer
Interface between management and the promoted PLC. Previous candidate was replaced by a memo. The memo is now a manager too.