System Architect – Datacenter Hardware

Axelera AI; Town of Norway (WI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Attractive compensation package

Pension plan

Employee insurance

Job summary

Axelera AI in Wisconsin seeks a Senior Platform Architect to define platform-level architecture for AI accelerator systems. The role involves collaborating with various divisions to ensure alignment and performance across systems.

Applicants should have significant experience in system architecture and be ready to engage in leadership within a multidisciplinary team, driving methodologies and best practices in platform design.

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience in system architecture, preferably at server/rack scale.
• Core knowledge of distributed workload mapping and interconnect architecture.
• Ability to connect hardware architecture to workload characteristics.

Responsibilities

• Define platform-level architecture for AI accelerator systems.
• Translate system-level requirements into hardware platform specifications.
• Ensure scalable designs that sustain performance as systems grow.

Skills

System, platform, or hardware architecture

Scale-up and scale-out system design

Leadership and collaboration

Problem-solving skills

Education

5+ years of experience in related field

Tools

Ethernet

Optical and switched-fabric technologies

Job description

About Us

Axelera AI is not your regular deep‑tech startup. We are creating the next‑generation AI platform to support anyone who wants to help advancing humanity and improve the world around us. In just four years, we have raised a total of $370 million and have built a world‑class team of 220+ employees, including 49+ PhDs with more than 40,000 citations. We work remotely from 18 different countries and maintain offices in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, the UK, headquartered at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, Netherlands. We have launched our Metis AI Platform, which achieves a 3‑5x increase in efficiency and performance, and have a strong business pipeline exceeding $100 million. Our unwavering commitment to innovation has firmly established us as a global industry pioneer. Are you up for the challenge?

Position Overview

We are looking for a Senior Platform Architect to own the platform‑level architecture for our data‑centre AI accelerator systems—from server through rack integration and, eventually, full data‑centre deployment. The role sits within the System Architecture team and marks our expansion from edge AI into the data‑centre. You’ll translate compute, memory, and connectivity requirements into architectural requirements on our hardware platforms. You own how accelerators are composed into systems to execute workloads effectively, defining system topology, host integration, memory organization and platform‑level requirements to achieve performance, scalability and operability. The role is primarily in close collaboration with the AI Infrastructure Systems division that builds our board‑ and system‑level products, as well as with the silicon and software divisions. Finally, you will be engaged with strategic customers and ecosystem partners on architecture requirements and technical alignment.

Key responsibilities

• Define the platform‑level architecture for our data‑centre AI accelerator systems, spanning server board design, rack integration, and data‑centre‑level deployment.
• Translate system‑level compute, memory, and interconnect requirements—defined in collaboration with the broader System Architecture team and product division—into concrete hardware platform specifications.
• Specify physical interconnect infrastructure, defining the architectural requirements and trade‑offs that the AI Infrastructure Systems division executes against, including how interconnect characteristics impact system‑level workload performance.
• Define host, storage and networking integration and organization at the hardware level, covering PCIe and CXL, as well as system‑level power budgeting.
• Ensure scaled‑up and scaled‑out designs sustain target performance as systems grow from single nodes to large clusters.
• Define operability and RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability) requirements across redundancy architecture, hot‑swap capability, telemetry and management interfaces (BMC/IPMI/Redfish), and fault containment to ensure platforms are manageable and dependable in production.
• Take a leading technical role in the system architecture team, interfacing directly with key partners and internal stakeholders to align architecture decisions, including the AI Infrastructure Systems division, silicon, product management, software and customers, system integrators and ecosystem partners. Commercial engagement and design ownership sit with the AIIS Director.
• Drive methodology and best practices for platform‑level design as the team scales.

Qualifications

• Significant experience (5+ years) in system, platform or hardware architecture, with a strong track record at server and/or rack scale.
• Core knowledge of scale‑up and scale‑out system design, distributed workload mapping, functional partitioning, and interconnect/fabric architecture.
• Deep, hands‑on understanding of Ethernet, UALink, optical and switched‑fabric technologies and the ability to reason about their system‑level performance trade‑offs.
• Systems thinking: ability to connect workload characteristics to hardware architecture and quantify the impact of design choices on end‑to‑end performance.
• Leadership and collaboration: demonstrated ability to lead and collaborate across multidisciplinary teams and to interface effectively with partners and senior stakeholders.
• Bonus: experience architecting AI/HPC accelerator systems, familiarity with distributed training/inference workloads and exposure to data‑centre‑scale deployment.
• Strong problem‑solving skills, a collaborative mindset and a passion for building systems at scale.

Location

We offer a flexible working arrangement, with options to:

• Work from one of our Axelera AI offices (Leuven in Belgium, Amsterdam and Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Zurich in Switzerland, Florence and Milan in Italy or Bristol in the UK) if you are already based in the vicinity.
• Work fully remotely from any European country (including the UK) you are already in.
• Relocate with us and work from Italy (Florence or Milan) or the Netherlands (Amsterdam or Eindhoven).

Priority will be given to candidates who are interested in being based in Belgium or Italy.

What We offer

This is your chance to shape and be part of a dynamic, fast‑growing, international organization. We offer an attractive compensation package, including a pension plan, extensive employee insurance and the option to get company shares. An open culture that supports creativity and continual innovation awaits you. Collaborative ownership and freedom with responsibility is characteristic of the way we act and work as a team.

At Axelera AI, we wholeheartedly embrace equal opportunity and hold diversity in the highest regard. Our steadfast commitment is to cultivate a warm and inclusive environment that empowers and celebrates every member of our team. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds to join us in shaping the future of AI.