Principal Execution & QA Validation Engineer
The Principal Execution and Quality Validation Engineer will drive validation execution, automation, product quality, and release readiness across Graphcore silicon and platform technologies. The role combines hardware validation, test automation, quality engineering, analysis, infrastructure improvement, and technical leadership.
Responsibilities
- Define and drive validation strategies for silicon, subsystems, and platforms
- Plan, optimize, verify, and test silicon, FPGA-based platforms, test systems, and validation infrastructure
- Develop and execute validation plans for quality, reliability, and performance objectives
- Create detailed test plans and test cases from high-level requirements
- Design, develop, and maintain automation frameworks for test plans and regression suites
- Lead silicon and platform validation from bring-up through product readiness
- Analyze validation results and system behavior to identify issues and improvements
- Collaborate across engineering disciplines to implement validation requirements and improve coverage
- Integrate validation capabilities and test solutions into existing infrastructure
- Develop automated data collection, analysis, and reporting solutions
- Evaluate design features for functional, compatibility, integration, and reliability risks
- Investigate validation failures and drive root-cause resolution
- Improve validation workflows and engineering processes through automation
- Support power, performance, and system-level validation
- Influence validation roadmaps, infrastructure, and engineering practices
- Ensure assigned validation issues are resolved before customer deployment
- Drive continuous validation-quality and execution-efficiency improvements
- Mentor engineers on validation methods, automation, test execution, and quality practices
Requirements
- Strong experience in silicon, hardware, or system validation
- 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 for automation, data analysis, and infrastructure development
- Strong understanding of hardware systems, silicon bring-up, and validation workflows
- Experience translating requirements into validation plans, test cases, and measurable quality outcomes
- Experience analyzing validation results and conducting root-cause investigations
- Strong understanding of validation coverage, quality metrics, release-readiness criteria, and risk assessment
- Experience collaborating across architecture, design, verification, firmware, software, systems, and validation teams
- Excellent analytical, diagnostic, and problem-solving skills
- Exceptional communication and technical-influence skills
- Ability to independently lead complex technical initiatives and drive adoption of validation methodologies and tools
- Experience with post-silicon bring-up and system integration
- 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