Persona AI Inc

Senior Technician, Robot Operations at Persona AI Inc (Houston, TX)

Persona AI Inc· Houston, TX·

Role details

Employment
Full-Time
Level
Senior

Job description

Job Title: Senior Technician, Robot Operations Department: Product Employment Type: Full-Time FLSA Status: Exempt Location: Houston, TX Travel: Up to 50%

Who We Are

Persona 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 while also being 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?

  • We offer competitive compensation, a performance-based bonus, 100% employer covered medical benefits for most healthcare plans, early-stage equity, competitive PTO, and 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 an experienced operations professional to spearhead our field deployments. In this role, you will be responsible for the end-to-end deployments, operation, and maintenance of Persona AI’s rapidly growing robotic humanoid fleet. Serving as the primary technician at heavy-industry customer facilities, you will ensure that our robotic fleet is successfully deployed and maintained in a variety of demanding environments.

What You Will Be Doing

  • Deploy and operate Persona’s humanoid robots at customer and partner sites, serving as an on-site point of contact during live deployments.
  • Manage robot readiness, environment setup, and real-time troubleshooting with precision and calm under pressure.
  • Identify opportunities to improve operational reliability and robustness of products in the field across mechanical, electrical, and software systems.
  • Execute end-to end robot mobilization and demobilization efforts at partner and client sites, to include comprehensive pre- and post deployment checks.
  • Maintain daily performance logs and field issue reports that feed directly into engineering and product teams.
  • Train site personnel on basic operational protocols as deployments scale, and work closely with application engineers to surface site-specific challenges and improvement opportunities.
  • Represent Persona professionally as the face of the product in the field.

What We Are Looking For:

  • 3+ years of hands-on experience in field operations, robotics deployment, electro-mechanical troubleshooting, or industrial equipment maintenance
  • Strong situational awareness and safety orientation in industrial environments.
  • Excellent communicator, able to interface with customer stakeholders and internal engineering teams alike.
  • Highly organized with strong documentation habits.
  • Willingness to travel up to 50%, both domestically and internationally.
  • Based in or willing to relocate to Houston, TX.

Bonus Skills:

  • Linux fluency and comfort with command line interfaces.
  • Experience supporting early-stage hardware products through initial live deployments.
  • Familiarity with Jira or equivalent incident management systems.

Persona 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.

Why work at Persona AI Inc

  • 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.

Application questions