Senior Perception Engineer | Sensors, Firmware & Drivers

Persona AI Inc•Houston, TX

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Persona AI is building humanoid robots for demanding environments in heavy industry, such as shipyards, steel mills, fabrication facilities, and offshore platforms. These robots will perform dangerous and physically demanding tasks like welding, grinding, maintenance, inspection, and material handling. The company is backed by leading investors and is working with global industrial leaders. Persona AI's work encompasses both the robot platform and the systems required for its large-scale deployment, with a significant focus on the Korean market through relationships with major shipbuilders and steelmakers. As a Senior Perception Engineer focused on Sensors, Firmware & Drivers, you will be responsible for the entire process from sensor data acquisition to algorithmic action. This includes bringing up new imaging and depth sensors, developing V4L2 drivers and zero-copy pipelines for NVIDIA Jetson, and implementing time synchronization for various sensors (cameras, lidar, IMU, joint state). This is a hands-on role requiring collaboration with Electrical Engineers on sensor boards and harnesses, debugging with specialized equipment like oscilloscopes, and qualifying hardware for harsh industrial conditions (welding arcs, heat, vibration, EMI). You will also develop the necessary calibration and validation infrastructure. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys working with new hardware, has a keen eye for microsecond-level precision, and wants to be the team's expert on sensor stack capabilities.

Requirements

5+ years building embedded sensor, firmware, or driver systems in robotics, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, or comparable hardware-heavy domains.
Strong C/C++ and Python; comfortable in the Linux kernel.
Demonstrated camera bring-up experience: MIPI CSI-2, V4L2, GMSL2/GMSL3 (Maxim/ADI) or FPD-Link, I2C/SPI sensor configuration.
Experience shipping software that runs on hardware in the field, with the instincts about failure modes that comes from having done it.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with NVIDIA Jetson platforms, Jetson Linux BSP, device tree, kernel module development, flashing and board support work.
NVIDIA Holoscan SDK, DeepStream, or CUDA/GPU-accelerated streaming pipelines.
Time synchronization across heterogeneous sensors (PTP, hardware trigger design).
ISP tuning, HDR imaging, or low-level camera sensor characterization.
Lidar, radar, ToF, or event-camera integration.
Experience with industrial or safety-relevant hardware environments.

Responsibilities

Bring up new imaging and depth sensors end to end: I2C/SPI enumeration, register maps, GMSL2/GMSL3 and FPD-Link serializer/deserializer configuration, CSI-2 lane mapping, and first light on target hardware.
Write and maintain V4L2 / MIPI CSI-2 camera drivers and device tree overlays for NVIDIA Jetson platforms (Orin, Thor), including kernel work against the Jetson Linux BSP.
Build low-latency, zero-copy sensor ingest and pre-processing pipelines in NVIDIA Holoscan, GStreamer, and CUDA | ISP tuning, debayer, rectification, format conversion with a hard budget on glass-to-algorithm latency.
Own multi-sensor time synchronization: PTP/gPTP, hardware trigger distribution, exposure-to-timestamp accounting, and drift characterization across cameras, lidar, IMU, and robot joint state.
Partner with EE on schematic and layout review for sensor boards, GMSL coax/harness design, power sequencing, and connector selection; debug with a scope, logic analyzer, and thermal camera in hand.
Characterize and qualify sensors for the real environment: welding-arc dynamic range, IR interference, vibration, ingress, temperature soak, and EMI from high-current equipment.
Build the calibration and validation infrastructure | intrinsics/extrinsics, HDR and exposure behavior, automated bench tests, CI on real hardware.
Work directly with vendors and silicon partners on errata, firmware revisions, and early access to new parts.
Support the perception and autonomy teams as the authority on what the sensor stack can and cannot deliver.