Senior Virtualisation Engineer in Bristol

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 are seeking a Senior Virtualisation Engineer to manage our corporate and engineering virtualisation platforms. These platforms support core services like Active Directory, DNS, source-control systems, and Kubernetes clusters. You will ensure the reliability, performance, and lifecycle management of our VM and container platforms. A key part of this role involves owning and managing our VDI environment for high-performance EDA CAD workloads. Experience with Omnissa Horizon or a similar virtual desktop platform is required. You will also manage the VM fleet daily, including provisioning, automation, patching, incident response, and optimisation. Experience with VMware Tanzu or other Kubernetes orchestration platforms is highly valued. A strong automation approach is important to streamline deployment and simplify operations.

The Team

You’ll be joining a multidisciplinary team with strong technical skills and a very encouraging culture. We work closely together and regularly share knowledge, and your skills will make a direct impact on our business. It’s an exciting and pivotal moment for us right now, with plenty of new projects ahead. If you’re looking to solve interesting problems and see your work deliver real-world results, this is the team for you!

Responsibilities and Duties

• Manage and maintain the corporate virtualisation platforms supporting core services.
• Run, track, and improve Kubernetes platforms (VMware Tanzu or alternatives).
• Manage the VDI environment used for EDA CAD workloads (Omnissa Horizon or similar).
• Carry out lifecycle tasks throughout the VM fleet, including provisioning, patching, and fault resolution.
• Automate deployment and operational processes (Ansible, Terraform, PowerCLI, Python, etc.).
• Automation of CI/CD based image/template creation to generate known secure images.
• Implement monitoring, capacity planning, and performance optimisation for hypervisors and virtual workloads.
• Diagnose intricate problems spanning virtualisation, network, and storage domains.
• Work with vendors on upgrades, support cases, and platform evaluations.

Candidate Profile

Essential:

• 5+ years experience coordinating enterprise virtualisation platforms.
• Strong hands-on experience with VMware vSphere/ESXi or equivalent.
• Experience handling VDI deployments at scale (Omnissa Horizon or VMware Horizon preferred).
• Experience managing core infrastructure (AD, DNS, SCM) in virtualised environments.
• Proficient in automation tools and scripting languages such as Ansible, Terraform, PowerCLI, Python, and others.
• Strong problem-solving abilities across compute, network, and storage.
• Experience with patching, upgrades, and capacity planning.
• Strong understanding of security architecture, hardening practices, and risk mitigation within virtualised environments.

Desirable:

• Experience supporting semiconductor or HPC/EDA environments.
• Familiarity with GPU-accelerated VDI or compute workloads.
• Knowledge of observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk).
• Understanding of high-performance networking (10/25/40/100GbE, RDMA, etc.).
• Experience with crafting sandbox environments for security and DR testing work, for example.
• Understanding of Kubernetes platforms (Tanzu, OpenShift, Rancher, etc.).
• Worked with third-party hyper-converged VMware platforms such as SimpliVity.

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.