Staff Software Engineer - Product Validation in Cambridge

Job Overview

the company has built the world’s most pervasive compute architecture, powering computing wherever it happens – from embedded and automotive systems to cloud and data centre infrastructure. As the company continues to grow its presence in server and infrastructure markets, system software plays a significant role in enabling high‑quality, production‑ready platforms for customers and partners.

This role is part of the company’s System Solutions software organization. It involves working on software for the company Neoverse‑based platforms. Tasks range from initial verification on pre‑silicon platforms to production‑quality firmware and software on real silicon. The staff engineer will provide technical and people leadership for a focus group, responsible for proving system readiness, software quality, release confidence, and customer‑facing adaptability across complex platform work.

We are looking for a staff engineer with strong system software expertise, extensive system‑wide knowledge, and a deep passion for quality, validation, and testing. This person will develop the process for validating complex firmware and platform software across the full system. Validation covers early pre‑silicon environments, silicon bring‑up, platform integration, release readiness, and customer‑facing use cases. They will also help grow a validation culture that detects issues early, produces clear evidence, and supports confident delivery.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Lead the end‑to‑end validation and product quality assurance strategy for embedded software, firmware, and platform solutions across the entire product lifecycle, ensuring product reliability, robustness, and release readiness.
• Develop robust test strategies, test plans, and automation methodologies for pre‑silicon and post‑silicon validation environments.
• Provide deep technical expertise in one or more platform domains, including High‑Speed I/O (HSIO), Low‑Speed I/O (LSIO), BIOS/UEFI, Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS), Telemetry, and BMC technologies.
• Collaborate with architecture, design, firmware, software, hardware, and program management teams to define validation requirements, quality metrics, and release criteria early in the development cycle.
• Support silicon bring‑up activities, board validation, firmware integration, and system‑level debugging during pre‑silicon emulation and post‑silicon validation phases.
• Define and monitor key quality indicators (KQIs), validation metrics, and coverage goals to drive data‑driven quality improvements and release decisions.
• Mentor and provide technical leadership to validation engineers by promoting standard processes in test architecture, automation development, debugging techniques, root‑cause analysis, and engineering excellence.

Required Skills and Experience

• Proven experience in Firmware Validation, Platform Validation, Embedded Software Validation, Quality Engineering, or related domains, with a consistent record of delivering high‑quality products from concept through production release.
• Proven experience defining and delivering validation strategies, quality assurance frameworks, and release qualification plans for complex firmware, embedded software, and hardware‑software integrated platforms.
• Strong expertise in developing validation architectures, test strategies, test plans, and coverage models across component, subsystem, integration, and system‑level validation.
• Background in firmware, platform software, or low‑level system software validation on pre‑silicon and silicon platforms, preferably on the company‑based systems, demonstrated through ownership, review, and mentorship of complex technical validation strategies.
• Excellent programming skills in C/C++, with proficiency in automation and scripting languages such as Python, Shell, or Perl.

Nice to have Skills and Experience

• Experience working on server or infrastructure platforms, including customer‑ or production‑facing environments.
• Understanding of system architecture, preferably the company, OS fundamentals, bootloaders, firmware interfaces, device drivers, and board bring‑up flows.
• Experience with platform compliance or readiness programs such as SystemReady, ACS, firmware conformance, security validation, or customer acceptance testing.
• Experience building or scaling validation teams, validation frameworks, lab automation, hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing, or release‑readiness processes.
• Experience working in globally distributed teams.

In Return

You’ll join a collaborative, highly skilled engineering environment where you can influence the quality, readiness, and success of the company Neoverse‑based solutions from pre‑silicon validation through to production deployment.

Please note that no relocation package is available for this role.

Salary Range: £97,300 – £131,700 per year

Equal Opportunities

The company is an equal opportunity employer, committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal opportunities are available to all applicants and colleagues. We are a diverse organization of dedicated and innovative individuals, and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.