Staff Software Test Engineer

About Graphcore

How often do you get the chance to build a technology that transforms the future of humanity?

Graphcore products have set the standard in made-for-AI compute hardware and software, gaining global attention and industry acclaim. Now we are developing the next generation of artificial intelligence compute with systems that will allow AI researchers to develop more advanced models, help scientists unlock exciting new discoveries, and power companies around the world as they put AI at the heart of their business.

Graphcore recently joined SoftBank Group – bringing large and ongoing investment from one of the world’s leading backers of innovative AI companies.

Job Summary

The senior software test engineer is responsible for designing and delivering software validation and quality assurance solutions for the software group. This involves creating and executing tests, creating automation tools, identifying errors, and providing feedback to other teams – mainly software but sometimes hardware teams - that the final product meets the requirements of the product at the expected levels of quality, including reliability, accuracy and performance. As a senior team member, you are expected to engage with all stakeholders in the wider Software group, can be relied on to do due diligence, show technical leadership, support junior team members in acquiring new skills and write design documentation.

The Team

The software test team consists of highly talented software engineers with a diverse software background dedicated to automation. They test a complex product and software stack, work with machine learning frameworks and models, and are responsible for integration testing and release quality. The team handles large amounts of data and develops visualisation tools to extract meaning from that data.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Responsible for test design and development for projects within the Software team and machine learning frameworks.
• Responsible for maintenance and improvements of the Python based in-house automation framework and tools.
• Maintaining and enhancing continuous integration against simulations, emulations and physical hardware
• Working closely with all Software development teams supporting a culture of test driver development.

Candidate Profile

Essential:

• At least 10 years of software developing experience, of which 5 years have been in a test related role
• Strong proficiency in Python
• Experience in test automation in a CI/CD environment
• Possess excellent written and oral communication skills, be self-critical, can work both independently and have a strong sense of teamwork, enjoy finding issues and seeing it through to it being fixed in a software and hardware environment, you are dedicated to delivering high quality products.

Desirable:

• ISTQB (or equivalent) certifications
• Experience in hardware or chip level testing
• Exposure to machine learning frameworks, e.g. PyTorch, JAXX, Triton, …
• Experience with SQL, test data storage solutions and DB management
• Work experience with:
• Atlassian tools such as Jira and Confluence
• git (ideally through GitLab or GitHub)
• GitHub actions
• Some experience with people management

Benefits

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 (which includes health, mental wellbeing, and bereavement support). 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