diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index b14839c..4087745 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ project(dmf-studio VERSION 0.1.0 LANGUAGES CXX C)
 set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 20)
 set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
 set(CMAKE_CXX_EXTENSIONS OFF)
+set(CMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE ON)  # required: static deps link into libmxl.so
 
 # All executables land in build/bin so studio-manager finds node binaries next to itself
 set(CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin)