Electrical Engineer

persona.ai; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based bonus

Medical benefits 99% covered

Equity (early-stage)

Paid time off

Winter break

Job summary

Persona AI is seeking an Electrical Engineer to design space- and performance-constrained electronics for our humanoid robotics platforms. You will architect, schematic, and lay out PCBs, bring designs to production, and help with board bring-up in tight electromechanical envelopes alongside motors and sensors.

You will work with firmware and software to ensure the board enables the control stack, navigating uncertainty and delivering rapid, validated iterations from idea to working hardware.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field; advanced degree a plus.
• 5+ years industry experience designing and shipping production electronics (3+ with advanced degree).
• Experience designing and bringing up highly integrated PCBAs and flex/rigid-flex assemblies in high-volume, tightly integrated products.
• Hands-on experience with chip-scale packaging (BGA, WLCSP, fan-out), and HDI vias.
• Proficiency with ECAD tools and layout for HDI and high-speed signals.
• Strong mixed-signal design fundamentals: analog sensing, power, and high-speed digital.
• Experience with high-speed/embedded protocols: EtherCAT, CAN-FD, SPI, I2C/I3C, USB, MIPI, Ethernet/RGMII, RS485.
• Experience integrating sensitive analog sensors.
• Lab fluency: scope before simulator; good measurement discipline.
• Embedded C development for board bring-up and device drivers.
• GitLab revision control and reviews.

Responsibilities

• Design and support the hardware architecture of tightly integrated PCBAs and rigid-flex circuits for actuators, sensors, perception, and compute subsystems.
• Push density: component selection, stackups, and layout for power management and motor control, sensors, and chip-scale packages.
• Co-design with mechanical engineers for 3D routing and connector placement.
• Support mixed-signal subsystems spanning analog sensing, power delivery, and high-speed digital.
• Contribute to SI/PI analysis, return-path planning, decoupling strategy, thermal analysis, and EMI/EMC-aware layout.
• Bring up boards: debugging with scope and logic analyzer; validate layout choices with measurements.
• Partner with EMS/fab on stackup, impedance control, DFM/DFA/DFT, yield and ramp.
• Refine schematic, library, and layout conventions; scale for fast-moving teams.
• Collaborate with firmware/software to ensure the board enables the control stack.

Skills

5+ years electronics design

Embedded C

Hardware architecture

Team collaboration

Education

Bachelors in Electrical Engineering

Advanced degree a plus

Tools

KiCad

Altium

Cadence Allegro

HyperLynx

LTspice

Job description

Job Title: Electrical Engineer

Department: Hardware

Employment Type: Full-Time

Location: Houston, TX

Travel: 10%

Who We Are

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

We're looking for an Electrical Engineer to help design our most space and performance‑constrained electronics. We are looking for someone who can start from an idea, help devise an architecture, draw a clean schematic, create libraries when needed, lay out the PCB, send it to fab, and help bring it up when it gets delivered. That loop often can be closed in less than one week for simple designs, so speed is a must. You should be comfortable with uncertainty, confident enough in your fundamentals to know what rules can be broken, and driven to find the answer faster. You'll get to help make the impossible package possible: chip‑scale silicon, blind/buried vias, board‑to‑board stacks, and rigid‑flex assemblies operating in tight electromechanical envelopes alongside motors, sensors, mixed signals, and power electronics.

If you've helped ship high‑density electronics at scale and now want to apply that craft to robots that walk, manipulate, and reason about the physical world, we'd love to hear from you.

What You Will Be Doing

• Help design and support the hardware architecture of tightly integrated PCBAs and rigid‑flex circuits for actuators, sensors, perception, and compute subsystems across the robot.

• Push the limits of density: support component selection, stackups, and layout for power management and motor control, sensors, and communication with chip‑scale packages (BGA, WLCSP, 0201/01005 passives), blind/buried vias, HDI, and board‑to‑board interconnects.

• Co‑design with mechanical engineers to fit electronics into volumes that don't yet exist on a CAD model, including 3D rigid‑flex routing and connector placement.

• Support mixed‑signal subsystems spanning analog sensing (force, current, position, tactile), power delivery (point‑of‑load, isolated rails, motor drive), and high‑speed digital (multi‑Gbps SerDes, GMSL/MIPI, EtherCAT, CAN‑FD, USB, Ethernet).

• Contribute to signal and power integrity work: pre‑layout SI/PI analysis, return‑path planning, decoupling strategy, thermal analysis, and EMI/EMC‑aware layout to help boards work on first pass.

• Bring up boards: debug with scope and logic analyzer; close the loop on layout choices with measured data.

• Partner with manufacturing: interface with EMS partners and fab houses on stackup, impedance control, DFM/DFA/DFT, yield, and ramp.

• Follow and help refine schematic, library, and layout conventions that scale to a fast‑moving team without accumulating technical debt.

• Collaborate with firmware and software to ensure the board enables rather than constrains the control stack.

What We Are Looking For:

• Bachelor's degree (advanced degree a plus) in Electrical Engineering or a related field.

• 5+ years of industry experience designing and shipping production electronics (3+ with advanced degree).

• Experience designing and bringing up highly integrated PCBAs and flex/rigid‑flex assemblies in shipped consumer or industrial electronics, robotics, automotive, medical, or similar high‑volume, tightly integrated products.

• Hands‑on experience designing circuits with chip‑scale packaging (BGA, WLCSP, fan‑out), HDI techniques (microvias, blind/buried vias, stacked/staggered vias, sequential lamination), and fine‑pitch, miniature passive placement.

• Proficiency with a modern ECAD tool (KiCAD, Altium, Cadence Allegro), including constraint‑driven layout for HDI and high‑speed signals.

• Solid fundamentals in mixed‑signal design: low‑noise analog sensing, power conversion, and high‑speed digital — and the discipline to keep them from interfering with each other.

• Experience with high‑speed and embedded communication protocols (EtherCAT, CAN‑FD, SPI, I2C/I3C, USB, MIPI, Ethernet/RGMII, RS485).

• Experience integrating or designing sensitive analog sensors and components (strain gauges, capacitive sensors, hall‑effect, etc.).

• Lab fluency: you reach for the scope before the simulator, and you trust your measurements.

• Comfortable writing and reviewing embedded C to bring up new boards, write device drivers, and support embedded code.

• Experience using Gitlabs for revision control and reviews.

Bonus Skills:

• Experience in robotics, autonomy, or real‑time motion control systems.

• Background in consumer or industrial electronics at scale: wearables, AR/VR, smartphones, or similar space‑constrained, cost‑sensitive, high‑volume products.

• Experience designing for motor drive and BLDC/PMSM control, including current sensing, gate drive, and FOC‑friendly layout.

• Experience designing with high‑speed microcontrollers (ARM, STM32, TI, NXP) that use internal as well as external memory interfaces (EEPROM, SDRAM, Flash).

• Battery and power systems: battery management, charger design, multiphase converters, isolated topologies.

• Experience with simulation and analysis tools: HyperLynx, ADS, Sigrity, Ansys, LTspice, or similar SI/PI/EMI workflows.

• Familiarity with compliance and safety standards: FCC, CE, UL, CSA, ISO 13849, IEC 61508, ISO 26262.

• Control systems: experience bringing up robotic actuation systems and tuning controls.

• Industrial experience designing to IPC Class 2 or 3 design standards.

• Experience taking products through NPI and ramp with overseas EMS partners.

• Exceptional attention to detail, engineering discipline, and bias toward action.

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.