Principal Power & Performance Validation Engineer

Graphcore is one of the world's leading innovators in Artificial Intelligence compute, 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 a Principal Power & Performance Validation Engineer, you will drive validation strategy and execution for advanced AI compute silicon and systems. You will lead power, thermal, and performance validation activities across pre-silicon and post-silicon environments to ensure products meet efficiency, reliability, and scalability expectations.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Define and lead validation strategies for power, thermal, and performance characterization of AI compute silicon and platforms
• Lead, mentor, and support a team of validation engineers, providing technical guidance, coaching, and career development
• Drive planning, prioritization, and execution of validation activities across multiple projects and milestones
• Develop comprehensive validation plans covering functional, stress, workload, and corner-case scenarios
• Lead post-silicon bring-up and characterization activities for power and performance validation
• Drive validation of CPU, memory, interconnect, and high-speed I/O subsystems under complex workload conditions
• Develop scalable automation frameworks, regression infrastructure, and reporting tools using Python
• Design and execute benchmark workloads, parameter sweeps, and performance experiments to identify optimization opportunities
• Collaborate with architecture, RTL, firmware, software, and systems teams to debug and resolve complex technical issues
• Define validation metrics, pass/fail criteria, and reporting methodologies to ensure repeatable and high-quality analysis
• Guide development of custom workload generators and micro-benchmarks where required
• Analyze power, thermal, and performance data to identify bottlenecks and recommend improvements
• Contribute to continuous improvement of validation processes, tooling, and engineering practices
• Communicate technical findings, project status, risks, and recommendations clearly to stakeholders and engineering leadership
• Support hiring activities, onboarding, and team growth initiatives

Candidate Profile

Essential:

• Strong experience in power and performance validation, silicon characterization, or system performance engineering
• Experience leading or managing engineering teams within a technical environment
• Deep understanding of modern SoC architecture, including CPU, memory, interconnect, and high-speed I/O technologies
• Strong Linux systems knowledge and low-level performance analysis experience
• Strong Python programming skills for automation, orchestration, and data analysis
• Experience with benchmarking and profiling tools such as stress-ng, fio, perf, iperf, or equivalent technologies
• Experience debugging complex hardware and software interactions
• Ability to define structured validation methodologies, workload models, and test strategies
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret large datasets and identify system bottlenecks
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and cross-functional collaboration skills
• Ability to lead complex technical initiatives across geographically distributed teams

Desirable:

• Experience with AI accelerator, GPU, or high-performance compute architectures
• Experience with pre-silicon modeling or simulation environments
• Knowledge of power management technologies and silicon characterization methodologies
• Programming experience in C/C++ for low-level system or benchmark development
• Familiarity with hardware instrumentation and telemetry systems
• Experience working with high core-count or large-scale compute systems
• Experience scaling or building technical engineering teams