Autonomy Engineer

Persona AI; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Persona AI in Houston seeks an Autonomy Engineer to design and build the autonomy stack for rugged industrial humanoids, from simulation to shop-floor deployment.

The role requires an MS/PhD in robotics or CS, 5+ years in robotics with autonomy focus, world-model planning experience, and strong Python/C++ skills; experience with NVIDIA Cosmos, IsaacSim, ROS2, and data pipelines is a plus. Collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential.

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, or a related field.
• 5+ years of professional experience in robotics, with a primary focus on autonomy.
• 2+ years of experience applying world models to planning, reasoning, and scene understanding.
• Experience with plan execution approaches such as behavior trees and state machines.
• World model benchmarking and post-training experience in a robotics domain.
• Strong hands-on experience with NVIDIA Cosmos and IsaacSim.
• Experience with synthetic data generation, data curation, and benchmark evaluation.
• Strong fundamentals in Python, C++, data structures and algorithms, git, code review, CI/CD

Responsibilities

• Design and implement autonomy and behavior coordination algorithms for an industrial humanoid platform.
• Work with manipulation, locomotion, and perception engineers to integrate robot skills into autonomous robot behaviors.
• Develop plan execution approaches that combine classical control and learned policies.
• Design and implement behavior execution that is reactive, safe, adaptable, and explainable.
• Implement data curation pipelines that enable our robots to understand a variety of real-world industrial tasks.
• Develop synthetic data generation pipelines for post-training of humanoid world models.
• Design and implement pipelines for autonomous behavior evaluation, benchmarking, and regression testing

Skills

Autonomy focus

World models

Plan execution

Python

C++

CI/CD

Git

Education

MS or PhD in Robotics or CS

Tools

NVIDIA Cosmos

NVIDIA IsaacSim

ROS2

Job description

Persona AI is building humanoid robots for the most demanding environments in heavy industry — shipyards, steel mills, fabrication facilities, and offshore platforms — performing welding, grinding, maintenance, inspection, and material-handling work that is dangerous, physically demanding, and increasingly difficult to staff.

Job Title: Autonomy Engineer

Department: Software

Reports To: Behavior Coordination Lead

Employment Type: Full-Time

Location: Houston, TX

Travel: 10%

Persona AI is building humanoid robots for the most demanding environments in heavy industry — shipyards, steel mills, fabrication facilities, and offshore platforms — performing welding, grinding, maintenance, inspection, and material-handling work that is dangerous, physically demanding, and increasingly difficult to staff.

We are backed by leading strategic and financial investors and engaged with global industrial leaders across Korea, Japan, the United States, and Singapore. Korea is the center of gravity for our early commercial strategy, anchored by relationships with the world’s leading shipbuilders and steelmakers. Our work spans both the robot platform itself and the systems, partners, and playbooks required to deploy it at scale.

Why Join Persona AI?

• We offer competitive compensation, a performance-based bonus, 99% employer covered medical benefits, early-stage equity, competitive PTO, and a company-wide paid winter break between December 24th and January 2nd.
• You’ll shape technology that’s redefining the possibilities of robotics and human interaction.
• Work alongside passionate teammates who value creativity, and continuous learning.
  

About The Role

Persona AI is building a rugged humanoid platform to supplement the industrial skilled-labor workforce. Our robots are designed to perform complex tasks such as welding, grinding, and painting in demanding real-world environments.

To succeed, they must understand the job site, translate high-level objectives into executable plans, carry out those plans safely and reactively, and adapt as conditions change. We are looking for an Autonomy Engineer to help design and build the autonomy stack that enables these capabilities, from simulation through deployment on the shop floor.

This role combines world modeling with proven autonomy techniques to develop intelligent behaviors for humanoids operating at live industrial sites. We train the robot’s world model on representative industrial tasks and environments, giving it a deep understanding of the work it must perform. Before each new deployment, we then refine and validate its behavior in a digital twin simulation of the customer’s facility to ensure safety, reliability, and performance.

What You Will Be Doing

• Design and implement autonomy and behavior coordination algorithms for an industrial humanoid platform
• Work with manipulation, locomotion, and perception engineers to integrate robot skills into autonomous robot behaviors
• Develop plan execution approaches that combine classical control and learned policies
• Design and implement behavior execution that is reactive, safe, adaptable, and explainable
• Implement data curation pipelines that enable our robots to understand a variety of real-world industrial tasks
• Develop synthetic data generation pipelines for post-training of humanoid world models
• Design and implement pipelines for autonomous behavior evaluation, benchmarking, and regression testing
  

What We Are Looking For

• MS or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, or a related field
• 5+ years of professional experience in robotics, with a primary focus on autonomy
• 2+ years of experience applying world models to planning, reasoning, and scene understanding
• Experience with plan execution approaches such as behavior trees and state machines
• World model benchmarking and post-training experience in a robotics domain
• Strong hands-on experience with NVIDIA Cosmos and IsaacSim
• Experience with synthetic data generation, data curation, and benchmark evaluation
• Strong fundamentals in Python, C++, data structures and algorithms, git, code review, CI/CD
  

Bonus Skills

• Experience using VLMs to generate task plans for autonomous robots
• Exposure to humanoid robot locomotion, navigation, manipulation, or perception
• Experience with semantic mapping and scene understanding for autonomous mobile robots
• Experience with NVIDIA Isaac Lab for reinforcement learning environment setup and training
• Experience with generative and symbolic planning approaches
• Experience with ROS2 libraries for autonomous planning and navigation
  

Persona AI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.