Director, Post-Silicon Validation — AI SoC Bringup Lead

Graphcore; West of England; On-site; GBP 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Flexible working

Generous annual leave policy

Private medical insurance

Dental plan

Pension

Life assurance and income protection

Generous parental leave policy

Employee assistance programme

Job summary

Graphcore is seeking a Director of Post Silicon Validation to lead the Bristol team, driving post-silicon validation across a full AI SoC. You will manage hardware, firmware and software validation efforts, build scalable validation pipelines, and collaborate with engineering teams to ensure production-ready silicon.

The role requires deep technical expertise in SoC architectures, strong debugging skills, and a proven track record in leadership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electronic Engineering or equivalent.
• 20+ years in silicon, system, or platform validation.
• 10+ years in technical leadership.
• Proven experience leading post-silicon validation and bring-up for complex SoCs (AI, GPU, or CPU).
• Strong understanding of SoC architecture, coherency, power management, and interconnects.
• Expertise in debug tools, DFT infrastructure, and validation automation frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the Post Silicon Validation team in Bristol.
• Define, plan and execute chip bring-up activities for AI SoCs.
• Drive cross-domain debug and issue resolution across silicon, firmware, OS, and platform layers.
• Promote collaboration with design, software and validation teams.
• Advance automation and scalable validation via emulation and large-scale infra.
• Support continuous improvement in validation methods and analysis.
• Provide clear updates on progress, risks and quality to leadership.

Skills

Team leadership

Systems thinking

Cross-domain collaboration

Technical problem solving

Effective communicator

People development

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electronic Engineering

Master's degree preferred

Tools

C/C++

Python

Linux

Validation clusters

Job description

Graphcore is seeking a Director of Post Silicon Validation to lead the Bristol team, driving post-silicon validation across a full AI SoC. You will manage hardware, firmware and software validation efforts, build scalable validation pipelines, and collaborate with engineering teams to ensure production-ready silicon.

The role requires deep technical expertise in SoC architectures, strong debugging skills, and a proven track record in leadership.