Principal Debug Validation Engineer
Graphcore · Austin, Texas, United States · Posted Jul 8, 2026
Apply on company site Track it in JobSkout
Principal Embedded SW/FW Engineer (Bringup) - Austin, Tx, USA
Job Summary
We have an exciting opportunity to be part of a collaborative, cross-functional development team validating cutting-edge, high-performance AI chips and platforms.
You will play a key role in supporting new product introductions and post-silicon validation.
Working within the Post-Silicon Validation team, you will be involved with bringing first silicon to life, functionally validating it and working closely with many other teams to help it become a fully characterised and working product, reporting project status/progress to program management on a regular basis. You will have the opportunity to provide technical guidance to other engineering team members. In this role, you can leverage our experience and industry knowledge to architect and drive implementation of continuous improvements to test infrastructure and processes.
The Team
The Post-Silicon Bringup team sits within the Architecture and Validation team, we are responsible for bringup and validation of new silicon when it returns from manufacture, enabling and supporting the production SW and FW teams to bring up their software and supporting the Silicon Characterisation team.
Responsibilities and Duties
Plan, design, develop and debug silicon validation tests in bare metal C/C++ on FPGA/Emulator prior to first silicon
Deploy silicon validation tests on first silicon and debugging them
Develop automated test framework and regression test suites in Python to optimize validation efficiency
Collaborate closely with engineers from many other disciplines on a variety of topics
Work with Validation and Production Test engineering peers to implement best practices and continuous improvements to test methodologies
Analyse test results, identify and debug failures/defects
Contribute to shared test and validation infrastructure
Provide feedback to architects
Candidate Profile
Essential:
Understanding of ML applications and their workloads
A self-starter who can apply independent judgement
A team player able to lead and support colleagues with difficult concepts
Strong experience in Bare metal / embedded C/C++
Excellent problem-solving, analytical diagnostic skills
Ability to work across teams and programming languages to find root causes of critical and complex issues
Experience of the post-silicon validation process applied in digital ASIC environments
Python, Linux
Excellent communication skills and the ability to explain difficult concepts to resolve issues
Desirable
5 to 10 years’ experience
Experience building and leading, multi-site teams
Driver level experience with one or more of the following is highly desirable:
PCIe
Ethernet
Memory technologies (LPDDR, DDR, HBM, …)
Other peripherals such as I2C, I3C, SPI, …
Good knowledge of mixed-signal building blocks such as PLLs, high speed PHYs and IC control/communication protocols is highly desirable.
Experience of Arm CPUs, System IP and debug tools.
Experience of AMBA protocols.
Experience in Characterization, Failure Analysis, Test Development, Statistical analysis,