Senior System Software Engineer

Senior Staff System Software Engineer role at Graphcore

About Graphcore

Graphcore is one of the world’s leading innovators in Artificial Intelligence compute. It develops 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 Soft Bank Group, Graphcore is a member of an elite family of companies responsible for some of the world’s most transformative technologies, sharing a bold vision to enable Artificial Super Intelligence and ensure its benefits are accessible to everyone.

The teams are drawn from diverse backgrounds and bring a broad range of skills and perspectives. A melting pot of AI research specialists, silicon designers, software engineers and systems architects, Graphcore enjoys a culture of continuous learning and constant innovation.

As a member of the drivers and utilities team you will contribute to the planning, design, implementation and testing of low level kernel drivers and user space driver library code. You will be part of one of the two teams in the system software department (the firmware team being the other one) and report to the drivers and utilities team manager.

The drivers and utilities team is part of the system software group – working closely with both software engineers developing our Poplar SDK and with silicon and hardware engineers developing Graphcore’s IPU solution. The team develops custom control software on the host in kernel and user space. Our solutions enable customers to get maximum performance and utility for our cutting‑edge products.

• Design, implement, test and document OS Kernel and Device Driver software at the highest standard using C/C++/Python programming languages
• Participate in agile development – work as part of a scrum team to develop the right software at pace including mentoring junior team members
• Drive technical discussions with peers in software and hardware engineering, architects and other stakeholders. Share innovative concepts with wider audiences.
• Hands‑on during key product development phases involving close work with hardware and silicon engineering groups to enable fast time‑to‑market delivery
• Promote Graphcore values and culture

• 7-10 years of industry experience in software development using C/C++/Python
• OS Kernel and Device Driver development and deployment experience in Linux or Windows systems
• Good understanding of lower-level software stack and interactions with the hardware layer
• Effective problem‑solving skills, familiar with a full suite of debug and performance analysis tools and techniques
• Experience with one or more of: PCIe, CPU, device drivers, SoC, firmware, and hardware/software integration
• Proactive in driving engineering collaboration & obtaining input to solve issues
• Proven ability to schedule own workload
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, work well within a multinational team and with multinational customers; cultural awareness is essential

• Experience developing firmware or drivers for GPUs
• Knowledge of CUDA or OpenCL
• Experience working on up streaming of kernel code / contributing to Linux kernel
• Exposure to integration with data centre / cloud service operations – for example integration with Kubernetes or Open Stack

Competitive salary, flexible working, generous annual leave policy, private medical insurance and health cash plan, dental plan, pension (matched up to 5%), life assurance and income protection. Generous parental leave policy and an employee assistance programme (health, mental wellbeing, and bereavement support). Healthy food and snacks at our central Bristol office and our own barista bar. Commitment to an inclusive work environment and equal opportunity process.

Applicants for this position must hold the right to work in the UK. Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship or support for visa applications.

• Seniority level:
  Mid‑Senior level
• Employment type:
  
  Full‑time
• Job function:
  Engineering and Information Technology
• Industries:
  Semiconductor Manufacturing