Principal Engineer

About us 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, spanning AI research specialists, silicon designers, software engineers and systems architects. Job Summary We are looking for an experienced Principal Engineer to join our System Management team and help lead the development of critical interfaces used by internal and external customers to manage system state. You will provide technical leadership within assigned areas of System Management, guide architecture and implementation choices, mentor engineers and translate broader technical direction into effective execution. This is a hands-on engineering role for someone who can lead complex technical work, improve reliability and operational readiness, and collaborate effectively across multiple engineering disciplines. The Team The System Management team sits within the Software Platform group and helps build Graphcore products into large-scale AI solutions for our customers. The team is responsible for developing the interfaces between hardware, AI software and frameworks, as well as providing interfaces for public and private cloud environments. This includes system management capabilities that abstract complex hardware administration and enable reliable deployment and operation at scale. As one of the first teams to work with new hardware and software, we regularly solve complex system-level problems in environments where components and interfaces are still evolving. The role requires strong technical judgement, adaptability and an ability to work effectively across engineering teams. Responsibilities and Duties Convert agreed System Management direction into technical plans, engineering priorities and deliverable work for assigned areas. Provide technical leadership for architecture and design decisions, building alignment across collaborating teams and documenting important technical trade-offs. Act as a technical authority for assigned areas of System Management, leading the delivery of large and complex engineering initiatives and coordinating technical plans, dependencies, risks and decisions. Provide technical direction and mentoring to engineers working across system management, hardware lifecycle management, deployment automation and production operations. Take responsibility for key technical outcomes across the full software lifecycle, including design, implementation, automated testing, integration, deployment, observability and production readiness. Identify systemic reliability, scalability and operability issues and lead practical improvements across the platform. Collaborate with Hardware, Firmware, Platform Software and Datacenter Operations teams to diagnose system-level issues and improve end-to-end product behaviour. Improve engineering standards and working practices, including CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, automated testing, release safety and learning from operational incidents. Act as a senior technical escalation point for complex issues while creating reusable knowledge, tooling and automation that reduce future operational effort. Candidate Profile Essential Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience in a relevant subject. Substantial experience designing, building and operating Linux-based infrastructure or distributed systems. Demonstrated experience providing technical leadership for complex engineering initiatives invol…