Senior Systems Engineer – Performance & Reliability (Analysis) Bristol, UK

About Graphcore

At Graphcore, we’re building the future of AI compute. We’re a team of semiconductor, software and AI experts, with deep experience in creating the complete AI compute stack – from silicon and software to infrastructure at datacentre scale. As part of the SoftBank Group, backed by significant long‑term investment, we are delivering key technology into the fast‑growing SoftBank AI ecosystem. To meet the vast and exciting AI opportunity, Graphcore is expanding its teams around the world. We are bringing together the brightest minds to solve the toughest problems, in a place where everyone has the opportunity to make an impact on the company, our products and the future of artificial intelligence.

Job Summary

We turn large‑scale system measurements into decisions. Our team runs workloads across clusters of machines and collects detailed performance data. The challenge isn’t running the measurements—it’s deciding what they mean, and whether a system is good enough to enter production. We will work with results from real systems and help answer questions such as:

• Is this system behaving as expected?
• Is performance stable enough to trust?
• Does this meet the criteria to enter production?

This work includes systems engineering and analysis. It involves understanding variability, repeatability, and the differences between signal and noise. You won’t be confined to a single role. You may shape measurements, influence how they are run, or improve how results are interpreted. You are free to specialise, but the team is responsible for leaving no gaps. This is not a dashboarding or reporting role in the traditional sense. The goal is to produce outputs that support real engineering decisions.

We are looking for engineers who:

• Think carefully about uncertainty and evidence
• Prefer clarity over presentation
• Are comfortable challenging conclusions when data is weak

Selection criteria

Our engineers typically bring significant practical experience and sound engineering judgement. Depth in one area is valued, but the ability to work across boundaries is equally important.

• Strong software engineering experience, typically gained across multiple projects or systems over several years
• Experience working in Linux‑based environments, ideally with distributed or high‑performance systems
• Proficiency in Python
• Experience with automation and CI/CD systems (e.g. GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions)
• Ability to design, implement, and run experiments or tests that produce meaningful results
• Ability to interpret results and communicate findings clearly, with an emphasis on accuracy and usefulness for decision‑making
• Comfortable working in areas where requirements are not fully defined and judgement is required
• Experience working with large‑scale or distributed systems (e.g. clusters, cloud platforms, HPC environments)
• Experience with performance, reliability, or systems‑level testing/measurement
• Familiarity with pytest or similar frameworks for structured test/measurement execution
• Experience analysing system behaviour under load (compute, network, or ML workloads)
• Experience working with containerisation, orchestration, or provisioning systems (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, OpenStack)
• Proficiency in other application programming languages (e.g. C++)
• Exposure to data analysis, statistics, or interpreting variability in results

In addition to a competitive salary, Graphcore offers flexible working, a generous annual leave policy, private medical insurance and health cash plan, a dental plan, pension (matched up to 5%), life assurance and income protection. We have a generous parental leave policy and an employee assistance programme. We offer a range of healthy food and snacks at our central Bristol office and have our own barista bar!

We welcome people of different backgrounds and experiences; we’re committed to building an inclusive work environment that makes Graphcore a great home for everyone. We offer an equal opportunity process and understand that there are visible and invisible differences in all of us. We can provide a flexible approach to interview and encourage you to chat to us if you require any reasonable adjustments.

Sponsorship

Applicants for this position must hold the right to work in the UK. Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship or support for visa applications. We take pride in our commitment to creating an inclusive and diverse workplace. As part of our recruitment process, we ask for confidential diversity data from all applicants. This data will be anonymised so that no personal identification information will be collected, and is retained for statistical purposes only.