Principal Execution & QA Validation Engineer

Overview

Lead validation execution, automation, product quality and release readiness across Graphcore silicon and platform technologies, acting as the final validation authority for assigned areas.

What you'll do

• 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

What you'll need

• 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

Nice to have

• 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