Senior Debug Validation Engineer
Graphcore is a Bristol-based AI chipmaker (IPU accelerators), a SoftBank subsidiary and a Molten Ventures portfolio company.
Maintainer signals as of 8/20/2026
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 will lead post-silicon debug and validation for AI compute silicon and platform technologies. You will investigate complex hardware, firmware, software, and system issues, develop debug methodologies, analyse logs and traces, build Python-based infrastructure, define validation metrics, and support silicon readiness and release decisions.
Requirements
- Experience in bare metal environments
- Knowledge of SoC and platform architectures
- Expertise in debug infrastructure and post-silicon debug methodologies
- Strong programming skills in Python, C, or CMM
- Experience with post-silicon validation in digital ASIC environments
- Strong Linux and Python experience
- Knowledge of scan, DFT, JTAG, and trace infrastructure
- Experience with fault tree analysis, failure isolation, fishbone methodologies, and system-level debugging
- Experience with DFT flows, debug data parsing, and scan dump parsing
- Experience with PCIe, Ethernet, DDR, HBM, LPDDR, I2C, I3C, or SPI
- Experience with CoreSight, CTI, ETx, DStream, JLink, Lauterbach, ATB, or STM
- Knowledge of Arm CPU architectures, system IP, and AMBA protocols
Responsibilities
- Lead post-silicon debug and validation activities
- Plan, prioritize, and execute debug and validation activities
- Investigate and resolve silicon, firmware, software, and system-level issues
- Develop structured debug methodologies and failure analysis processes
- Identify root causes and implement corrective actions with engineering teams
- Debug CPU, memory, interconnect, and high-speed I/O subsystems
- Develop automated debug, regression, and validation infrastructure using Python
- Analyse logs, traces, telemetry, and hardware data
- Develop validation tests, debug tooling, and custom diagnostics
- Define validation metrics, debug workflows, and reporting standards
- Communicate technical risks, status, and recommendations
- Support silicon readiness reviews and product quality decisions