Early Career SoC Architect

Fractile; Greater London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Private Medical

Contributory Pension

25 days holiday + bank holidays

Job summary

Fractile in the United Kingdom is seeking an Early Career SoC Architect to learn how compute engines, memory hierarchies, interconnects, and I/O come together into a single chip. You’ll work with senior teams to gain exposure to full-chip modelling, spec writing, and cross-block trade-offs while mentoring supports your growth.

You’ll develop hands-on experience across RTL concepts, performance modelling, and toolchains, with a path to more ownership as you demonstrate capability in a

Qualifications

• A degree (BEng, MEng, MSc or equivalent) in Electronic Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field — or equivalent practical experience.
• A solid foundational understanding of SoC or computer architecture, including memory hierarchies, on-chip interconnects, and how compute, memory and I/O blocks integrate into a coherent chip, gained through study, projects, internships, or research.
• Some exposure to RTL design concepts and how physical design constraints feed back into architectural choices — academic or internship-level experience is fine.
• Any hands-on exposure to architectural performance modelling tools (gem5, SystemC, or custom cycle-accurate simulators), interconnect/NoC design, compiler/toolchain interactions, or AI acceleration/vector-matrix compute, through study or projects, is highly valued.
• A clear communicator, comfortable working across architecture, modelling, implementation, verification, and software teams, who thrives in ambiguity and fast iteration.

Responsibilities

• As an Early Career SoC Architect, you’ll join our architecture team to learn how our compute engines, memory hierarchies, on-chip interconnects and I/O come together into a single coherent chip.
• Working closely with senior architects and our logical design, physical design, and verification teams, you’ll get real exposure to full-chip performance modelling, specification writing, cross-block trade-off analysis, and pre- and post-silicon validation — with experienced architects mentoring you as you build toward owning more of this yourself.
• You don’t need prior industry experience as an SoC Architect; what matters is real hands-on exposure to chip-level or system design, through a final-year project, FPGA build, RISC-V SoC implementation, internship, or research, plus a comfort working across disciplines and a track record of thriving in ambiguity and fast iteration.

Skills

SoC architecture

Computer architecture

Memory hierarchies

On-chip interconnects

RTL design concepts

Performance modelling

Cross-disciplinary communication

Education

BEng / MSc in Electronic/Computer Engineering or related field

Tools

gem5

SystemC

NoC design

Compiler/toolchain interactions

AI acceleration compute

Job description

About FractileFractile was founded in 2022 on the bet that, eventually, the world’s most capable AI systems would be limited in their impact by the time taken to produce useful outputs. We bet everything on the logical conclusion: that the only way to truly unlock this latent value, to make speed viable at scale, was to radically re-invent the hardware that we run our frontier AI models on. Ever since, we have been building chips and systems that tackle this problem: how to efficiently generate output at thousands of tokens per second, while handling the complexity and capacity challenges of operating large models at very long contexts.

The workloads that push to the limits of the current frontier are already transformational; it is the technical and economic limits on inference speed that are constraining progress. The defining work of the 21st century will be marked by the engine of inference delivering immense and diffuse chains of intellectual inquiry, in drug discovery, in software engineering, in materials discovery, in any field where progress is driven by deep reasoning and intelligence to resolve complex problems.

About the Hardware organisation at the companySoC Architecture sits within the company’s hardware organisation, which owns everything from full-chip architecture definition through memory hierarchies, on-chip interconnects, and the path from early architectural exploration through to tapeout and post-silicon validation. Architecture at the company isn’t a paper exercise — it’s built in constant collaboration with logical design, physical design, and verification teams, so that every architectural decision is grounded in what will actually perform in working silicon.

About the team and roleAs an Early Career SoC Architect, you’ll join our architecture team to learn how our compute engines, memory hierarchies, on-chip interconnects and I/O come together into a single coherent chip. Working closely with senior architects and our logical design, physical design, and verification teams, you’ll get real exposure to full-chip performance modelling, specification writing, cross-block trade-off analysis, and pre- and post-silicon validation — with experienced architects mentoring you as you build toward owning more of this yourself.

About youWe’re looking for someone with a strong foundational understanding of computer or SoC architecture — built through coursework, personal projects, internships, placements, or research — who’s genuinely curious about how compute, memory and interconnect choices trade off against each other at the full-chip level, and eager to learn how to navigate them. You don’t need prior industry experience as an SoC Architect; what matters is real hands-on exposure to chip-level or system design, through a final-year project, FPGA build, RISC-V SoC implementation, internship, or research, plus a comfort working across disciplines and a track record of thriving in ambiguity and fast iteration.

Key Requirements

• A degree (BEng, MEng, MSc or equivalent) in Electronic Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field — or equivalent practical experience.

• A solid foundational understanding of SoC or computer architecture, including memory hierarchies, on-chip interconnects, and how compute, memory and I/O blocks integrate into a coherent chip, gained through study, projects, internships, or research.

• Some exposure to RTL design concepts and how physical design constraints feed back into architectural choices — academic or internship-level experience is fine.

• Any hands-on exposure to architectural performance modelling tools (gem5, SystemC, or custom cycle-accurate simulators), interconnect/NoC design, compiler/toolchain interactions, or AI acceleration/vector-matrix compute, through study or projects, is highly valued.

• A clear communicator, comfortable working across architecture, modelling, implementation, verification, and software teams, who thrives in ambiguity and fast iteration.

What We Offer

Competitive salary: A competitive salary reflective of your experience and the specialist nature of the role.

• Equity & Ownership: meaningful equity so everyone shares in the value creation

• Benefits: Private Medical, Dental and Vision, Contributory Pension, 25 Days holiday plus bank holidays and Life/Critical Illness Insurance.

• Diverse & fun office: we believe the hardest problems get solved by the broadest range of minds. We are committed to Equal Employment Opportunity through attracting and retaining a diverse team and building an inclusive environment.

the company is seeking to increase the clock speed of global progress, one chip at a time. We’ve recently raised $220M from investors including Founders Fund and Accel and our most important work lies ahead. Join us!

Export controls

Our work involves technologies subject to UK, US and other international export control regulations. Certain roles may require additional eligibility checks to ensure compliance with applicable law. We'll be transparent about this throughout the hiring process.