Staff System Validation Engineer

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.

Graphcore’s teams are drawn from diverse backgrounds and bring a broad range of skills and perspectives.

We are seeking a Staff System Validation Engineer to design and implement validation tests for Arm-based data center SoCs using a combination of open-source benchmarking tools and custom micro-benchmarks. Define test cases, tune workload parameters, and use Python to automate and analyze validation across processing units, system memory, communication links, and PCI Express components.  

The Systems Validation team validates Graphcore’s AI compute platforms across hardware, firmware, and software domains.

• Translate hardware features into structured, parameterized test cases, including:
  • Objectives, workload models, parameters, metrics, and pass/fail criteria. 
• Use and tune open-source tools such as:
  • Stress-ng, fio, iperf, sysbench, Imbench
• Define workload parameters:
  • Concurrency (threads/cores), memory footprint, access patterns
  • Queue depth, block size, CPU/NUMA affinity. 
• Design and execute validation scenarios:
  • Functional, performance, stress, and corner-case testing.
• Validate across domains:
  • CPU scaling and cache behavior
  • Memory (DDR/HBM) bandwidth, latency, and NUMA effects
  • Interconnect contention under multi-core load
  • PCIe/I-O throughput, latency, and multi-device scenarios
• Develop custom micro-benchmarks (C/C++) when existing tools are insufficient
• Use Python to:
  • Automate test execution and orchestration
  • Implement parameter sweeps and test matrices 
  • Parse, analyze, and visualize results. 
• Debug system behavior and performance issues in collaboration with hardware and firmware teams

Essential:

• Strong background in Linux systems and low-level performance analysis
• Experience in system validation, benchmarking, or performance testing
• Solid understanding of one or more domains:
  • CPU architecture, memory systems, or PCIe
• Experience using benchmarking tools (stress-ng, fio, iperf, etc.)
• Ability to define test cases, parameters, and workload models
• Proficiency in Python (essential) for automation, orchestration, and data analysis
• Programming experience in C/C++ for micro-benchmark development

Desirable:

• Experience with Arm-based platforms
• Strong programming skills in C/C++ and Python for system-level development and automation
• Familiarity with performance tools (perf, numactl, taskset)
• Experience with large-scale or high core-count systems