Staff Firmware QA Engineer — Flexible Work + Equity

Graphcore; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 119,000 - 172,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Generous leave

Pension matching

Phantom equity

On-site barista and free meals

Job summary

Graphcore is seeking a Staff System Software Engineer in Cambridge to shape firmware quality for next-generation hardware platforms. You will lead firmware QA across the team, verify boot/config/monitoring software, and build high-coverage tests with close collaboration to hardware teams.

You will design test infrastructure, drive root-cause investigations and mentor engineers, balancing technical breadth with practical ownership of difficult problems.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in firmware qualification across complex embedded systems.
• Deep understanding of real time embedded systems and boot logic.
• Experience working with hardware, debuggers and analysers.
• Strong understanding of silicon and hardware interfaces (I2C, I3C, SMBus, SPI, PCIe, DDR, Power management).
• Experience with CI/CD, build tools and modern testing practices.
• Ability to debug cross-layer issues and communicate complex concepts clearly.

Responsibilities

• Lead firmware QA across Graphcore's next-generation hardware platforms.
• Verify the low-level software behind boot, configuration and monitoring.
• Design test infrastructure and high coverage tests; debug issues with hardware and analysers.
• Guide best practice while staying close to the code.

Skills

Firmware QA

Embedded systems

Hardware debugging

Silicon interfaces

CI/CD & testing

Root-cause analysis

Job description

Graphcore is seeking a Staff System Software Engineer in Cambridge to shape firmware quality for next-generation hardware platforms. You will lead firmware QA across the team, verify boot/config/monitoring software, and build high-coverage tests with close collaboration to hardware teams.

You will design test infrastructure, drive root-cause investigations and mentor engineers, balancing technical breadth with practical ownership of difficult problems.