Director - Post-Silicon Validation (Functional)

Graphcore • Austin, TX

1d

About The Position

Graphcore is seeking a Director - Post-Silicon Validation (Functional) to join a collaborative, cross-functional development team validating cutting-edge, high-performance AI chips and platforms. This role is crucial for supporting new product introductions and validation. The Director will lead a team in delivering post-silicon validation across the full AI SoC, encompassing silicon, firmware, and platform levels. The position requires deep technical understanding, strong hands-on debug experience, and the ability to collaborate effectively with hardware, software, and systems engineering teams. The successful candidate will be involved in bringing first silicon to life, functionally validating it, and working closely with other teams to ensure it becomes a fully characterized and working product. They will report project status/progress to program management regularly and provide technical guidance to other engineering team members. This role offers the opportunity to leverage experience and industry knowledge to architect and drive the implementation of continuous improvements to test infrastructure and processes. The Post-Silicon Bringup team, within the Architecture and Validation team, is responsible for the bringup and validation of new silicon, enabling and supporting production SW and FW teams, and supporting the Silicon Characterisation team.

Requirements

• Understanding of ML applications and their workloads
• A self-starter who can apply independent judgement
• A team player able to lead and support colleagues with difficult concepts
• Strong experience in Bare metal / embedded C/C++
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical & diagnostic skills
• Ability to work across teams and programming languages to find root causes of critical and complex issues
• Experience of the post-silicon validation process applied in digital ASIC environments
• Python, Linux
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to explain difficult concepts to resolve issues

Nice To Haves

• 10+ years experience
• Experience building and leading, multi-site teams
• Driver level experience with one or more of the following is highly desirable: PCIe, Ethernet, Memory technologies (LPDDR, DDR, HBM, …), Other peripherals such as I2C, I3C, SPI, …
• Good knowledge of mixed-signal building blocks such as PLLs, high speed PHYs and IC control/communication protocols is highly desirable.
• Experience of Arm CPUs, System IP and debug tools.
• Experience of AMBA protocols.
• Experience in Characterization, Failure Analysis, Test Development, Statistical analysis, in addition to functional validation

Responsibilities

• Plan, design, develop and debug silicon validation tests in bare metal C/C++ on FPGA/Emulator prior to first silicon
• Deploy silicon validation tests on first silicon and debugging them
• Develop automated test framework and regression test suites in Python to optimize validation efficiency
• Collaborate closely with engineers from many other disciplines on a variety of topics
• Work with Validation and Production Test engineering peers to implement best practices and continuous improvements to test methodologies
• Analyze test results, identify and debug failures/defects
• Contribute to shared test and validation infrastructure
• Provide feedback to architects

Benefits

• competitive salary
• flexible working
• medical coverage
• dental coverage
• vision coverage
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)
• Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
• disability insurance
• life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• commuter benefits
• wellness services
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed