AI Processor Architect | Equity & Impact

NIF; West of England; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity ownership

Private medical

Dental and vision

Pension plan

25 days holidays

Life/CI insurance

Diverse team

Job summary

Fractile is seeking a Processor Architect to define and drive the architecture of core compute engines, ISA definitions and on‑chip interconnects. You will work with design, verification and software teams to translate architectural intent into silicon that performs in the real world.

You’ll spearhead performance modelling and pre/post‑silicon validation, guiding trade‑offs between density, power and speed while shaping the roadmap for frontier AI workloads.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Processor Architect, CPU/GPU Architect, or similar role in semiconductor or high-performance computing domains.
• Deep understanding of compute engine and processor architecture and design, including matrix and vector centric floating-point arithmetic and memory hierarchies.
• Strong grasp of RTL design flows and physical design constraints and how they feed back into architectural choices.
• Experience taking processor designs from early exploration through to tapeout and post-silicon performance characterisation.
• Demonstrated ability to define and manage performance and power budgets and navigate complex trade-offs.
• Comfortable working across many disciplines, including architecture, modelling, implementation, verification, and software.
• Excellent communicator who can bridge architectural depth with system-level and product-level context.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the compute engine architecture specifications, balancing performance, flexibility, power, area, and design complexity.
• Lead architectural exploration from early concept through to specification, coordinating with modelling, implementation, verification, and physical design teams.
• Specify execution units, memory hierarchy, instruction sets and flow - making principled trade-offs at every level.
• Help build and maintain performance models and simulators to guide architectural decisions with data.
• Partner with the system architecture and software/modelling teams to ensure the processor delivers real-world application performance, not just benchmark wins.
• Evaluate emerging techniques - compact number formats, novel compute paradigms, advanced packaging options - to inform the architectural roadmap.
• Act as a technical mentor, raising the bar for rigour in performance analysis and architectural documentation across the team.
• Represent compute engine architecture in technical reviews, partner discussions, and customer engagements.

Skills

Processor Architect

Compute engine

RTL design

Tapeout experience

Power budgeting

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication skills

Tools

gem5

SystemC

cycle-accurate simulators

Job description

Fractile is seeking a Processor Architect to define and drive the architecture of core compute engines, ISA definitions and on‑chip interconnects. You will work with design, verification and software teams to translate architectural intent into silicon that performs in the real world.

You’ll spearhead performance modelling and pre/post‑silicon validation, guiding trade‑offs between density, power and speed while shaping the roadmap for frontier AI workloads.