Job Title: Animator

Department: Software

Employment Type: Full-Time

Location: Pensacola, FL

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

Persona AI is developing and commercializing rugged, multi-purpose humanoid robots that perform real work. Persona’s founding team has a decades-long history in humanoid robotics, bionics, and product development delivering robust hardware that has touched the stars, worked miles below the surface of the ocean, roamed Disney Parks, and has even been featured on a US postage stamp.

We are looking for Character Animators who show a strong understanding of appeal, weight, locomotion as well as entertainment, specifically for human or humanoid motion. In short, we need someone who can turn capable robots into helpful creatures that humans will want to work with and around.

What You Will Be Doing

• Shape the way our robots move in the real world: animate reference gaits, idle motions and interactions for our robotic personas.
• Rigging and animation of Persona robots.
• Motion capture, cleanup and retargeting of motion data to Persona robots.
• Advise the motion controls team with the goal of increasing the appeal of the robot and avoiding the uncanny valley.
• Work with the motion control team to ensure feasibility of the animations and realize them on the physical robot.
• Work with the software team to develop tools and plugins for animation of physical characters.

What We Are Looking For:

• Background in character animation for games or film, and excitement about seeing your animations come to life in the real world.
• Proficient in Blender, Maya or 3ds Max.
• Proficient in rigging and animation with joint and inverse kinematics constraints.
• Able to animate appealing and believable motions while remaining physically plausible.
• Familiar with motion capture and retargeting.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

Bonus Skills:

• Experience animating for robots.
• Experience working in Nvidia Omniverse.
• Familiar with physics based animation and physics modeling.

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.