About Graphcore 

At Graphcore, we’re building the future of AI compute.

We’re a team of semiconductor, software and AI experts, with deep experience in creating the complete AI compute stack - from silicon and software to infrastructure at datacenter scale.

As part of the SoftBank Group, backed by significant long-term investment, we are delivering key technology into the fast-growing SoftBank AI ecosystem.

To meet the vast and exciting AI opportunity, Graphcore is expanding its teams around the world.

We are bringing together the brightest minds to solve the toughest problems, in a place where everyone has the opportunity to make an impact on the company, our products and the future of artificial intelligence

Job Summary

Applicants for this role should have strong experience designing, developing, and maintaining high-quality software systems. The role focuses on testing and validating a complex machine learning software stack, with particular emphasis on software architecture, automation, and engineering best practices.

The ideal candidate is an experienced software engineer who values code quality, testability, and long-term maintainability, and enjoys building systems that other engineers rely on. This person will be comfortable working across large codebases, contributing to CI/CD infrastructure, and shaping technical direction through thoughtful design and mentoring in a technically demanding environment spanning ML frameworks, infrastructure, and AI accelerator hardware

The Team

The ML QA team is composed of highly skilled software engineers with a strong focus on automation, software quality, and data-driven validation. The team works closely with industry-standard machine learning frameworks and models, contributing to upstream open-source projects and collaborating across the wider software organization. 

Operating in a fast-paced environment, the team plays a critical role in ensuring reliability, performance, and maintainability across the ML software stack, helping to deliver robust and high-quality products to customers. 

Responsibilities and Duties

• Design, implement, and maintain robust test infrastructure and automation for a complex ML software stack.
• Architect and evolve test frameworks and tooling with a focus on scalability, maintainability, and developer experience.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines targeting simulators, emulators (e.g. QEMU), and physical hardware.
• Create representative ML workloads and gain insights from their execution. (Numerical accuracy, performance analysis and benchmarking).
• Work closely with all Software development teams, supporting a culture of quality, security and maintainability.
• Review code and designs, setting a high bar for software engineering best practices.
• Mentor and support junior engineers, helping raise the overall technical capability of the team.
• Evaluate existing test strategies and infrastructure, identifying gaps and driving improvements aligned with team and organizational goals. 

Candidate Profile

Essential:

• Experience in production-quality software engineering roles.
• Strong software design and architecture skills, with experience working on large or complex systems.
• Strong proficiency in Python, including experience building and maintaining production codebases.
• Solid experience with CI/CD systems and automated testing (preferably GitHub-based workflows).
• Experience working in Linux environments.
• Familiarity with C or C++, with the ability to read, debug, and reason about low-level code when needed.
• Proven ability to mentor junior engineers and influence engineering practices within a team.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a proactive, self-directed approach to work.
• Bachelor/Master's/PhD or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Maths, Machine Learning, Data Science, or related field. 

Desirable

• Exposure to machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, Triton, TensorFlow
• Experience with distributed workload management systems such as Kubernetes, VLLM, Keras or MLOps pipelines
• Experience working with hardware simulators or emulators (e.g. QEMU).
• Experience developing for or working with FPGA-based systems.
• Experience with people management or mentoring 

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.

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

The Company

Flagship Labs 119 Inc. (FL119) is an early-stage technology company pioneering a new frontier at the intersection of neuroscience and computation. We are developing next-generation technologies to transform how intelligent systems are built. We believe that the future of artificial intelligence demands a fundamental rethinking of today’s paradigms. Our mission is bold and urgent: to build a future where naturalistic, robust intelligence can emerge and operate sustainably at scale.

FL119 is backed by Flagship Pioneering, which brings the courage, long-term vision, and resources needed to realize unreasonable results. At FL119, we are uniquely cross-functional and collaborative. Our teams thrive in unstructured and creative environments. All voices are heard because we know that experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way.

The Role:

FL119 is seeking a creative and deeply technical Neuromorphic Systems Architect to join our team. Leveling is flexible based on experience.

This role will focus on translating nonlinear neural dynamics into next-generation computational architectures. You will work at the interface of neuroscience, dynamical systems theory, and hardware engineering to design and prototype electronic architectures that embody biologically derived principles of computation.

This is not a conventional AI accelerator role. We are seeking someone who can rethink compute from first principles, designing architectures that leverage recurrence, nonlinearity, sparsity, event-driven signaling, and adaptive dynamics as foundational primitives rather than constraints.

How You Will Contribute:

• Formalize brain-derived computation using dynamical systems theory and translate these insights into hardware-relevant abstractions.
• Architect novel neuromorphic or neuro-inspired hardware systems (analog, mixed-signal, in-memory, or alternative substrates).
• Define system-level architecture, including memory models, communication schemes, and energy-efficient compute primitives.
• Collaborate with neuroscience, signal processing, and machine learning teams to ensure tight coupling between biological insight and architectural design.
• Lead feasibility studies, simulations, and early-stage prototyping efforts.
• Evaluate trade-offs across CMOS, emerging devices, photonic, memristive, or other unconventional compute substrates.
• Contribute to IP strategy, including invention disclosures and patents.
• Help shape the long-term compute vision of the company.

Must-have Qualifications:

• PhD (or equivalent experience) in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, Computational Neuroscience, Computer Engineering, or a closely related field.
• Deep expertise in nonlinear dynamical systems and their application to computation.
• Experience designing hardware architectures (ASIC, FPGA, analog/mixed-signal, or emerging device technologies such as RRAM, PCM, memristors, etc.).
• Strong mathematical foundation in dynamical systems, control theory, or computational modeling.
• Demonstrated ability to move from theory to implementable system design.
• 5+ years of relevant research or industry experience (level dependent)

Preferred Experience:

• Prior work in neuromorphic computing or spiking neural network hardware.
• Experience with event-driven or asynchronous architectures.
• Familiarity with reservoir computing, recurrent dynamical systems, or physical computing substrates.
• Experience working in early-stage, fast-paced R&D environments.
• Track record of patents or high-impact publications in neuromorphic systems or unconventional computing.

ABOUT FLAGSHIP PIONEERING

Flagship Pioneering invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health, sustainability and beyond. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated more than 100 companies. Many of these companies have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture.  

Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com.

At Flagship, we accept impossible missions to enable bigger leaps. Our core values guide us through uncertainty and toward lasting impact.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We recognize that great candidates often bring unique strengths without fulfilling every qualification. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, please apply anyway. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your background and interest in Flagship.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.

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The salary range for this role is $150,000 - $250,000. Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience. FL119 currently offers healthcare coverage, annual incentive program, retirement benefits and a broad range of other benefits. Compensation and benefits information is based on FL119's good faith estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future.