Robotics Full Stack Software Engineer

Job Title: Robotics Full Stack Software Engineer Department: Software Employment Type: Full-Time Location: Houston, TX or Pensacola, FL 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 are looking for a Robotics Full Stack Software Engineer to join our team! The Teleoperation Team bridges the gap between biological and artificial intelligence. While the operator experience lives in the immersive interface, what makes it actually work lives deeper in the stack in how data moves, how messages are sized, how packets travel over unreliable networks, and how you preserve fidelity when bandwidth is constrained. That's this role. You're the person who understands what happens between the robot and the operator at the lowest level, and who knows how to optimize every layer of that path. There's no playbook for this yet. Sim-to-real gap not included. What You Will Be Doing Build reliable, debuggable, understandable software that bridges controls and XR. Build software that interfaces directly with hardware SDKs for robot sensing, control, and data collection Create low-latency, predictive data streaming pipelines over unreliable real-world transports (WiFi, cellular, the messy real world) Create systems that support motion retargeting and robot control Monitoring, metrics, and alerting infrastructure that scales with a growing fleet Rendering optimization pipelines that ensure high-fidelity operator feedback without sacrificing latency or frame rate Controls algorithms from the operator to the robot What We Are Looking For PhD, Msc, or Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field 5+ years in software with a strong systems engineering background Exceptional production level Rust System architect and API designer Solid Python for tooling, test harnesses, and automation Deep understanding of low-level networking (TCP/IP, UDP, WiFi, cellular, BLE) and how to optimize protocols for latency-sensitive real-world conditions Deep Linux experience, including embedded environments Hardware SDK integration experience Strong ownership and communication skills; comfortable working across hardware, firmware, and XR engineering teams Bonus Skills Familiarity with rendering optimization concepts and how data fidelity is preserved under constrained compute or bandwidth Working knowledge of robotic control concepts (kinematics, motion retargeting, sensor integration) enough to collaborate effectively with the controls team Experience with low-level graphics or rendering pipelines Experience building software that teleoperates a robot or controls a physical system, ideally something you can show us! Familiarity with modern build systems like Nix or Bazel Open source contributions, especially in robotics or systems software XR or embedded Linux development experience 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.