Lab Program manager - Lead

Salary Band: $222,700 - $301,000

About Us

Graphcore is a globally recognised leader in Artificial Intelligence computing systems. The company designs advanced semiconductors and data centre hardware that provide the specialised processing power needed to drive AI innovation, while delivering the efficiency required to support its broader adoption. 

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. We are opening a new AI Engineering Campus in Austin, which will play a central role in Graphcore's work building the future of AI computing.

Role Overview

Graphcore is establishing a new engineering lab in Milpitas, and we are seeking a Systems Lab Program Manager - Lead to build and own this capability. As the first operational hire at the site, you will take responsibility for ensuring the lab is designed, equipped, and managed to support complex system prototyping and engineering activities. This is a hands-on role with strong ownership, where you will combine technical expertise with process development to enable the Systems Engineering team to deliver at scale.

In addition to running the Milpitas lab, you will help define processes, tools, and best practices that can be applied across other Graphcore facilities worldwide — making this role critical to shaping how we scale our engineering environments globally.

Key Responsibilities

• Establish and operate the Milpitas Systems Lab - take ownership of lab readiness, infrastructure, and daily operations.

• Enable engineering prototyping - manage the environment needed for system bring-up, testing, and iterative experimentation.

• Hardware lifecycle management - coordinate receipt, installation, inventory, and tracking of boards, servers, networking, and lab equipment.

• Infrastructure design and deployment - implement reliable, high-performance lab networks and system configurations.

• Operational excellence - develop standard operating procedures, troubleshooting frameworks, and monitoring practices.

• Cross-team collaboration - work with engineering, IT, and vendors to align lab capabilities with Systems Engineering goals.

• Reliability and risk management - ensure high availability of lab resources, mitigate risks, and resolve issues quickly.

Required Skills and Experience:

• Engineering degree required

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• Experience in lab or systems operations, with strong skills in networking, hardware, and systems setup.

• Proven ability to deliver end-to-end technical projects involving infrastructure setup, prototyping environments, or lab deployments.

• Strength in troubleshooting, process design, and operational improvement.

• Ability to act as a site owner while working collaboratively as part of the Systems Engineering team.

• Strong communication skills for cross-functional collaboration.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to high-performance systems environments (servers, GPUs, or complex infrastructure).

• Certifications in AWS, ITIL, or Red Hat Linux (or equivalent).

• Experience guiding or mentoring peers, even in an individual contributor capacity.

• Familiarity with compliance, monitoring, and documentation best practices in lab operations.

Benefits
In addition to a competitive salary, Graphcore offers a competitive benefits package. 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.