---
title: 'Robotics Machine Learning Engineer at Persona AI Inc'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-machine-learning-engineer-persona-ai-inc-pensacola-fl-or-houston-kf6d661zknwp'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# Robotics Machine Learning Engineer at Persona AI Inc

- **Company:** Persona AI Inc
- **Location:** Pensacola FL OR Houston, TX
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/persona.ai/b211bb98-0522-4d48-8f05-5df4b164dee2

## Job description

Job Title: Robotics Machine Learning Engineer Department: Machine Learning Reports To: Head of Machine Learning Employment Type: Full-Time Location: Pensacola, FL or 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 a Machine Learning Engineer to drive our machine learning strategy. We are primarily interested in candidates who have developed and released products to market, but can be flexible depending on aptitude and energy. As one of the inaugural Machine Learning Engineers at Persona, you will have an incredible opportunity to get in at the beginning to shape the design and development of Persona’s humanoid robot.

## What You Will Be Doing

- Collaborate on the design and development of the Persona ML software stack and support its application in manipulation, navigation, locomotion, and perception.
- Work with the ML team to craft and execute on a comprehensive plan for the development of machine learning models, keeping up to date with the state of the art in research and development.
- Work with the team to develop, test, and deploy software, machine learning pipelines, and data collection pipelines.
- Monitor and evaluate the performance of models in the real world.
- Collaborate with Universities and other companies.
- Collaborate in attracting, nurturing and growing the machine learning and autonomy teams.

What We Are Looking For:

- Courage and grit to tackle some of the hardest problems in embodied AI.
- Enthusiasm for working collaboratively in a high paced team environment.
- 3+ years of experience in machine learning applied to robotics.
- Experience with deep learning frameworks (Pytorch, JAX, TensorFlow, etc.)
- Experience with cloud computing to develop models, store data, etc. (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Strong understanding of the state of the art research in robot learning (behavior cloning for manipulation, reinforcement learning for locomotion, world models, etc.).
- Understanding of the challenges of deploying neural network models in the real world.
- Experienced in deploying both traditional and learning based approaches for robotics.
- Capable of writing high quality software.
- Thrive in fast paced and ambiguous environments.
- Strong first principles thinker.

Bonus Skills:

- An advanced degree (Masters or PhD) in computer science, robotics, machine learning, or another related field.
- Published papers at top ML/Robotics conferences (ICML, ICRA, CoRL, RSS, NeurIPS).
- Have deployed robots, collected large amounts of data, and trained large neural networks that work in production environments.

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.

## About Persona AI Inc

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Persona AI develops industrial humanoid robots designed for skilled physical work in complex environments like shipyards, construction sites, and energy infrastructure.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Pre-Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: Houston, Texas, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Nicolaus Radford (CEO), Jide Akinyode (COO), Dr. Jerry Pratt (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Industrial Robotics, Humanoid Robotics, AI, Manufacturing, Construction, Energy, Shipbuilding
- **Target customers**: B2B / Enterprise — heavy industrial sectors including shipbuilding, construction, energy (oil & gas, utilities), manufacturing, and defense.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To build industrial humanoid robots that perform skilled physical work in complex environments, addressing labor shortages, improving safety, and increasing operational efficiency across heavy industry. The company focuses on the "4D jobs" — dull, dirty, dangerous, and declining — so that humans don't have to perform them.

## Products & Services
- **Persona AI Humanoid Platform**: A modular industrial humanoid robot designed for real-world applications in shipyards, construction sites, energy infrastructure, and manufacturing facilities. The system is engineered for skilled physical work in complex environments and supports tasks such as welding, grinding, inspection, material handling, fabrication, and equipment maintenance. The modular design allows integration with standard industrial tools and adaptation to different workflows.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding — $30M (oversubscribed Pre-Seed round, closed June 2025)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Tides Ventures, Unity Growth Fund, POSCO DX, GOOSE Capital, SGH Capital, Embedded Ventures, and 19 other investors. Partners include Under Armour (performance materials), ABS (shipyard safety), and the State of Louisiana (pilot program at SSE Steel Fabrication).
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount of ~65 employees (as of mid-2025) with a monthly growth rate of +3.9%. Active job postings have grown +13.3% monthly and +54.5% quarterly. The company has announced key hires including Brian Davis (Head of Global Manufacturing) and Michael Perry (Head of Commercial Strategy). It has secured a pilot program with the State of Louisiana and a partnership with ABS for shipyard applications.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Deep domain expertise**: The leadership team has contributed to 15+ humanoid projects and published impactful robotics research, giving them a strong technical foundation.
- **Modular, task-focused design**: The robot platform is built to integrate with standard industrial tools and adapt to different workflows, making it practical for real-world deployment rather than being a general-purpose humanoid.
- **Early mover in a critical niche**: Persona AI is specifically targeting the skilled industrial labor gap in sectors like shipbuilding, construction, and energy, which face acute labor shortages and high demand for automation.
- **Strong government and industry partnerships**: Early pilot programs with the State of Louisiana and a partnership with ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) demonstrate real-world traction and validation.

## Strategic Focus
- **Productization and deployment**: Moving from R&D to deploying humanoid robots in real industrial environments, with a focus on welding, fabrication, and maintenance tasks.
- **Scaling the team**: Aggressively hiring across robotics engineering, machine learning, mechanical design, and commercial strategy roles to build out the organization.
- **Building commercial partnerships**: Establishing relationships with major industrial players (e.g., POSCO, HD Hyundai affiliates, Under Armour) and government entities to secure pilot programs and long-term contracts.
- **Expanding use cases**: Targeting shipbuilding, construction, energy infrastructure, and defense as primary verticals.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven work**: The company is tackling a tangible, high-impact problem — the skilled labor shortage in heavy industry — by building robots that perform dangerous, dirty, and physically demanding tasks.
- **Strong technical team**: The leadership includes veterans from NASA, the robotics research community, and major defense/industrial companies. The CTO, Dr. Jerry Pratt, is a well-known figure in humanoid robotics.
- **Early-stage growth**: As a 2024 startup with $30M in funding and a headcount of ~65, new hires can have significant impact on the product and company direction.
- **Diverse, hands-on roles**: Open positions range from Welding Engineer and Robotics Technician to Machine Learning Engineer and XR Rendering Engineer, offering a variety of technical challenges.
- **Houston-based**: Headquarters in Houston, Texas, with a growing international presence. The company appears to be on-site or hybrid given the nature of hardware development.
- **Notable perks/culture**: The company emphasizes a "build" culture, with a focus on putting "tough humanoids to work." The team includes veterans from Anduril, Nauticus Robotics, and NASA, suggesting a high-caliber, mission-driven engineering environment.

## Sources
1. [persona.ai](https://persona.ai/)
2. [LinkedIn - Persona AI](https://www.linkedin.com/company/persona-humanoids-at-work)
3. [CB Insights - Persona AI](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/persona-ai)
4. [Ashby Careers - Persona AI](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/persona.ai)
5. [Persona AI - The Team](https://persona.ai/the-team/)

## Other roles at Persona AI Inc

- [AI Engineer – Robotics Data Preprocessing](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-robotics-data-preprocessing-persona-ai-inc-pensacola-fl-or-houston-mzny1g5jneke) — Pensacola FL OR Houston, TX
- [Senior Assembly Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-assembly-technician-persona-ai-inc-houston-n7kt2xazhmpk) — Houston, TX
- [Robotics Software Internship, Manipulation](https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-software-internship-manipulation-persona-ai-inc-houston-3ymz9b7b5tm8) — Houston, TX
- [Talent Acquisition Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/talent-acquisition-coordinator-persona-ai-inc-houston-27jreg4pv57e) — Houston, TX
- [Senior Technical Recruiter – Advanced Manufacturing](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-technical-recruiter-advanced-manufacturing-persona-ai-inc-houston-7xhsd3k6ym9r) — Houston, TX
- [Senior Technical Recruiter - Humanoid Robotics Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-technical-recruiter-humanoid-robotics-engineering-persona-ai-inc-houston-ze8sb651qkw5) — Houston, TX
- [Controls Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/controls-systems-engineer-persona-ai-inc-houston-dwx4kw5d6sp5) — Houston, TX
- [Senior Robotics Software Engineer - Autonomy](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-robotics-software-engineer-autonomy-persona-ai-inc-houston-2qspy6cwd7jy) — Houston, TX
- [Precision Assembler](https://feeny.ai/job/precision-assembler-persona-ai-inc-houston-b7h62z0a3b93) — Houston, TX
- [Robotics Full Stack Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-full-stack-software-engineer-persona-ai-inc-pensacola-fl-or-houston-9n7bffpy4sfk) — Pensacola FL OR Houston, TX