Senior Systems Engineer - Commissioning and Characterisation

Explore how a next-generation AI architecture behaves from rack scale to data centre scale. As a Senior Systems Engineer, you will investigate a novel AI computing architecture under demanding real-world workloads. You will work on problems where answers aren't readily known, turning curiosity into measurable evidence. You will design experiments, benchmark representative AI workloads and explore how hardware components and software interact at scale. When behaviour is unexpected, you will turn this into new measurements. Your work will help infrastructure engineers, architects and application specialists understand system behaviour, performance, scalability and reliability across the stack. You will also help develop tooling and automation to collect, analyse and visualise system metrics. You do not need to be an AI expert. You will need strong judgement, curiosity and a clear preference for evidence over opinion. You will love this role if you are someone who takes initiative, questions assumptions and enjoys working in areas where the answers are not yet known.

The System QA team is distributed across multiple locations. We work hard to stay connected and collaborate closely. Our daily team meetings feel more like a virtual coffee break than a formal status update with space to share ideas, ask questions, discuss discoveries and solve problems together. We value trust, autonomy and openness, and we understand that great engineers don't all follow the same career path. What matters is the quality of your work, your curiosity, and your willingness to explore challenging problems. You will have regular 1:1s with your people manager where you will have the opportunity to discuss things that matter to you. You will have dedicated time each week to focus on your CPD. The technical lead will provide direction and help set priorities, but everyone in the team is there to support each other. One of our core principles is that we measure and report what we observe without trying to make results look better or worse than they are.

What we're looking for:

• Comfortable using Python to write tests, automate tasks, analyse data or develop practical engineering tools.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• A curiosity-driven approach to investigating complex systems.
• Ability to explain technical findings clearly, using accurate and reproducible evidence.
• Confidence to work independently, take responsibility and collaborate across engineering teams.
• Experience in some of the following would be valuable: AI workloads and benchmarking, systems architecture, parallel and distributed computing, automation, containers or modern orchestration infrastructure.

While we have outlined a set of requirements, we value transferable skills and diverse experiences from different industries. We actively welcome applications from engineers to the profession through a returnship or after a career break.

Benefits:

• Flexible working: Balance your work and personal life with greater flexibility.
• Generous leave: Take time to rest, recharge and enjoy life outside of work.
• Retirement planning support: Up to 5% matched pension.
• Phantom equity: Share in Graphcore's success.
• Workplace experience: Enjoy thoughtfully designed office spaces for collaboration, with free food and an on-site barista to support your day.
• Peace of mind protection: Income protection and life assurance to provide financial security for you and your loved ones.
• Flexible benefits: Tailor your benefits package with a choice of additional options, including private medical insurance and dental cover.
• Optional benefits: Dental cover, health cash plan, private medical insurance, cycle to work scheme, give as you earn.

We welcome people from all backgrounds and experiences and are committed to building an inclusive environment where everyone can do their best work. We're an equal opportunity employer and recognise that everyone brings different strengths and perspectives. If you need any adjustments during the interview process, just let us know - we're happy to support you.

Sponsorship: Applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship or support visa applications for this role.

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. Together, they share a bold vision: to enable Artificial Super Intelligence and ensure its benefits are accessible to everyone. Graphcore's teams are drawn from diverse backgrounds and bring a broad range of skills and perspectives. A melting pot of AI research specialists, silicon designers, software engineers and systems architects, Graphcore brings together deep expertise to solve complex problems and deliver meaningful progress in AI compute. If you want to explore how complex AI systems really behave, we'd love to hear from you.