Houston Real-Time Low-Level Controls Engineer — Robotics

Persona AI Inc; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based bonus

Medical benefits (employer covered)

Equity (early-stage)

Competitive PTO

Winter break

Job summary

Persona AI Inc is seeking a Low-Level Controls Engineer to design, implement, and tune real-time control loops for actuators and joints embedded on microcontrollers or DSPs. You will collaborate with electrical and mechanical engineers to understand hardware and with autonomy teams to meet robotic requirements.

The role requires strong fundamentals in classical controls, hands-on firmware experience, and the ability to bring up hardware, test loops, and optimize performance on real hardware

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Mechanical/Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years designing and implementing low-level motor/actuator control systems.
• Strong fundamentals in PID, cascaded control, feedforward, and state-space analysis.
• Experience with time-synchronized torque control and sensor feedback.
• Hands-on embedded firmware in C/C++ with real-time constraints.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and tune low-level control loops for electromechanical actuators.
• Write and optimize embedded firmware that runs control loops in real time.
• Model actuator and drivetrain dynamics to inform controller design.
• Apply classical control techniques and evaluate advanced approaches as needed.
• Collaborate with electrical engineers on sensing and drive hardware.
• Bring up new actuator hardware, instrument it, and run initial loops.
• Debug performance using scopes, data logging, and analysis to isolate issues.
• Coordinate with motion planning and software teams to align low-level controls with higher-level tasks.
• Document architectures, tuning procedures, and known limitations.

Skills

Embedded C/C++

Real-time firmware

Motor control

Control systems

MATLAB/Simulink

Python

Oscilloscopes

Sensor fusion

RTOS

Data analysis

Education

Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering

5+ years in low-level motor/actuator control

Tools

CAN-FD

RTOS

Job description

Persona AI Inc is seeking a Low-Level Controls Engineer to design, implement, and tune real-time control loops for actuators and joints embedded on microcontrollers or DSPs. You will collaborate with electrical and mechanical engineers to understand hardware and with autonomy teams to meet robotic requirements.

The role requires strong fundamentals in classical controls, hands-on firmware experience, and the ability to bring up hardware, test loops, and optimize performance on real hardware