Director / Senior Principal AI SoC Validation (Bring-up Lead)
Graphcore is a Bristol-based AI chipmaker (IPU accelerators), a SoftBank subsidiary and a Molten Ventures portfolio company.
Maintainer signals as of 8/14/2026
About Graphcore
Graphcore (graphcore.ai) is a British semiconductor company building Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs) for AI workloads. Founded in Bristol in 2016, it was acquired by SoftBank in 2024. It is a portfolio company of Molten Ventures.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You lead post-silicon validation for a complex AI SoC, define validation strategy, drive cross-domain debugging, improve automation and scalable validation infrastructure, align hardware and software teams, report validation progress and risks, and contribute to product readiness and roadmap decisions.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering or equivalent
- Master’s degree preferred
- 15 to 20 years of silicon, system, or platform validation experience
- 5 to 10 years of technical leadership experience
- Experience leading post-silicon validation and bring-up for complex AI, GPU, or CPU SoCs
- Understanding of SoC architecture, coherency protocols, power management, and interconnects
- Expertise in debug tools, DFT infrastructure, and validation automation frameworks
- Proficiency in C, C++, Python, and Linux-based environments
- Large-scale validation cluster experience is an advantage
- Excellent communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills
Responsibilities
- Define and lead post-silicon validation strategy
- Develop and refine the post-silicon validation approach
- Drive investigation and resolution of issues spanning silicon, firmware, operating systems, and platforms
- Align design, software, and validation teams on quality objectives and debug priorities
- Advance emulation, prototyping, and large-scale validation infrastructure
- Improve validation methods, automation, and analysis
- Provide updates on validation progress, risks, and quality indicators
- Contribute to product readiness assessments and roadmap decisions