Principal Execution & QA Validation Engineer

About us

Graphcore is one of the world’s leading innovators in Artificial Intelligence compute.

It is developing hardware, software, and systems infrastructure that will unlock the next generation of AI breakthroughs and power the widespread adoption of AI solutions across every industry.

As part of the SoftBank Group, Graphcore is a member of an elite family of companies responsible for some of the world’s most transformative technologies. Together, they share a bold vision: to enable Artificial Super Intelligence and ensure its benefits are accessible to everyone.

Graphcore’s teams are drawn from diverse backgrounds and bring a broad range of skills and perspectives. A melting pot of AI research specialists, silicon designers, software engineers, and systems architects, Graphcore enjoys a culture of continuous learning and constant innovation.

Job Summary

Reporting to the Validation leadership team, the Principal Execution and Quality Validation Engineer will be responsible for driving validation execution, automation, product quality, and release readiness across Graphcore silicon and platform technologies.

The role combines deep expertise in hardware validation, test automation, and quality engineering with a strong focus on execution excellence. Working closely with architecture, design, verification, firmware, software, systems engineering, and validation teams, the successful candidate will develop scalable validation methodologies, improve test coverage and execution efficiency, and ensure products meet the highest standards of functionality, reliability, and performance before customer deployment.

As a recognized technical leader within the validation organisation, this role will influence validation strategies, automation roadmaps, and quality practices across multiple projects and engineering disciplines.

The Team

The Validation Execution and Quality team sits within the Validation organisation and is responsible for improving validation effectiveness, test execution efficiency, product quality, and release readiness across Graphcore silicon and platform products.

The team develops validation methodologies, automation frameworks, test execution infrastructure, and quality processes that enable engineering teams to execute validation activities at scale. Working closely with validation, architecture, firmware, software, systems, and design teams, the group helps ensure products are thoroughly validated before release.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Define and drive validation strategies for complex silicon, subsystem, and platform technologies, ensuring comprehensive coverage across functional, performance, reliability, and stress testing 
• Leverage advanced hardware knowledge to plan, optimize, verify, and test critical electronic systems, including silicon, FPGA-based platforms, test systems, and associated validation infrastructure 
• Develop and execute validation plans that ensure products meet quality, reliability, and performance objectives before release 
• Create detailed test plans from high-level validation requirements and test cases, ensuring timely execution and high-fidelity results 
• Design, develop, and maintain automation frameworks that enable rapid execution of test plans, regression suites, and validation activities 
• Lead silicon and platform validation activities from bring-up through product readiness 
• Conduct complex analysis of validation results and system behaviour to identify issues and opportunities for improvement 
• Collaborate with architecture, design, verification, firmware, software, systems engineering, and validation teams to implement new validation requirements and improve test coverage 
• Integrate new validation capabilities, methodologies, and test solutions into existing validation infrastructure to improve productivity, quality, and execution efficiency 
• Develop automated data collection, analysis, and reporting solutions to improve engineering visibility and decision-making 
• Evaluate complex design features to identify functional, compatibility, integration, and reliability risks 
• Investigate and drive resolution of complex validation failures through structured debug and root-cause analysis methodologies 
• Assess validation techniques, workflows, and engineering processes, introducing automation and process improvements to maximize productivity 
• Support power, performance, and system-level validation activities through development of scalable validation infrastructure and methodologies 
• Influence validation roadmaps, infrastructure development, and engineering best practices across the validation organisation 
• Act as the final validation authority for assigned areas, ensuring issues are identified and resolved before products reach customers 
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that improve validation quality, execution efficiency, and engineering productivity 
• Mentor engineers on validation methodologies, automation frameworks, test execution strategies, and quality practices 

Candidate Profile

Essential:

• Strong experience in silicon validation, hardware validation, system validation, or related engineering disciplines 
• Deep understanding of validation methodologies, test planning, test execution, and quality processes 
• Strong experience developing automation frameworks for validation, regression execution, and test orchestration 
• Expert-level Python programming skills for automation, data analysis, and infrastructure development 
• Strong understanding of hardware systems, silicon bring-up, and validation workflows 
• Experience translating high-level requirements into structured validation plans, test cases, and measurable quality outcomes 
• Experience analysing validation results and driving root-cause investigations for complex technical issues
• Strong understanding of validation coverage, quality metrics, release readiness criteria, and risk assessment methodologies 
• Experience collaborating across architecture, design, verification, firmware, software, systems, and validation teams 
• Excellent analytical, diagnostic, and problem-solving skills 
• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction across multidisciplinary engineering teams 
• Ability to independently lead complex technical initiatives and drive adoption of new validation methodologies and tools 

Desirable

• Experience with post-silicon bring-up and system integration activities 
• Experience developing large-scale regression systems and automated test execution infrastructure 
• Experience with FPGA-based validation environments 
• Experience automating laboratory equipment and validation environments 
• Familiarity with CI/CD systems and continuous testing methodologies 
• Experience developing dashboards, reporting systems, or engineering analytics tools 
• Experience with C, C++, or embedded software development 
• Experience working on AI accelerator, high-performance compute, or semiconductor products 
• Experience defining organisational validation standards, quality metrics, and engineering best practices