Graphcore is a globally recognized leader in Artificial Intelligence computing systems. The company designs advanced semiconductors and data center hardware that provide the specialized 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.
About the Role
We are seeking a Principal Security Architect to design, maintain and secure scalable infrastructure solutions for cryptographic key management. In this strategic role, you will be responsible for evaluating, deploying and manage Hardware Secure Modules from the ground up, ensuring compliance with standards across different regions. You will also enable multiple teams by supporting them for control and automation. You will be expected to drive and implement policies for key and certificate creation, rotation, and revocation.
Collaboration with stakeholders to analyze requirements and implement robust access controls is essential while demonstrating operational excellence.
RESPONSIBILITIES- Design and deploy scalable, secure infrastructure solutions from scratch, aligned with business requirements and security standards.
- Hardware Secure Module ownership and governance.
- Develop organizational standards, policies, access models, and workflows to ensure consistent, secure usage of the platform.
- Conduct risk and compliance assessments to support system security plans and disaster recovery strategies.
- Collaborate on requirement analysis, user and key story operations, and capacity planning to ensure optimal resource utilization.
- Advocate for best practices in secret lifecycle management, authentication methods, and identity federation.
- Create tooling, automation, onboarding guides, and libraries to help teams access the platform easily and correctly.
REQUIREMENTS
- Education: MS or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Cryptography, Cybersecurity, or a related highly technical field.
- Experience: 10+ years of deep technical experience and proven experience in Public Key Infrastructure, Hardware Security Modules deployment and management.
- Strong knowledge of encryption technologies, security controls, and compliance frameworks.
- Strong understanding of authentication backends (OIDC, LDAP, cloud IAM), secret engines, PKI, encryption, and token/credential lifecycle.
- Familiarity with infrastructure maintenance, disaster recovery planning, and capacity management.
- Skilled in coding standards, secure software development lifecycle, and configuration management processes.
- Familiarity with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform preferred) and CI/CD automation.
- Leadership & Communication: Exceptional ability to distill complex, theoretical security concepts into strict engineering specifications, and the gravitas to influence engineering teams and executive leadership without direct authority.
DIFFERENTIATORS
- Experience integrating Vault with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and CI/CD pipelines.
- Standards Body Contributions: Active participation, authorship, or contribution to industry security standards (e.g., TCG, OCP Security Project, Linux Foundation, or Arm security working groups).
- Knowledge of SPIFFE/SPIRE, workload identity, or zero-trust architectures.
- Post-Quantum Readiness: Forward-looking understanding of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and its upcoming impact on hardware lifecycle and secure boot.
- Understanding of Platform Root of Trust, Platform Identity, DICE and attestation.
Graphcore offers competitive compensation and benefits designed to support employees' health, financial well-being, work-life needs, and professional growth. Benefits and programs for eligible U.S. employees may include:
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage, with options that may extend to eligible dependents.
- Mental health, wellness, and employee assistance resources.
- Retirement savings benefits and company contributions where applicable.
- Paid vacation, sick time, company holidays, and parental or family leave in accordance with relevant plans and policies.
- Life insurance and short-term or long-term disability coverage.
- Flexible working hours and hybrid working arrangements where compatible with the role and team requirements.
- Professional-development resources, learning programs, office amenities, and team-led activities.
Benefits vary by work location, employment status, scheduled hours, and plan eligibility and are subject to the terms of the applicable plans and company policies. This overview is not a contract or guarantee of benefits.
Equal Opportunity and AccommodationsGraphcore is an equal opportunity employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.
Graphcore is committed to an inclusive and accessible hiring process. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, please let the recruiting team know.
Candidate PrivacyPersonal information submitted during the recruiting process will be handled in accordance with Graphcore's applicable candidate privacy notices.
Skills Required
- Advanced degree or equivalent experience in computer science, computer engineering, cryptography, cybersecurity, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience accepted
- Extensive experience in hardware security, system-on-chip security, platform architecture, or a closely related field
- Technical leadership at Principal, Staff, or Lead Architect scope
- Deep knowledge of Arm architecture and security technologies, including Armv9, TrustZone, Confidential Compute Architecture, and Realm Management Extension
- Experience designing server or platform security frameworks using trusted platform modules, roots of trust, hardware cryptography, secure provisioning, and lifecycle management
- Strong understanding of hardware security primitives and their interaction with firmware and system software, including Linux kernel internals, KVM, containers, and trusted execution environments
- Expert knowledge of hardware and platform threats, physical attack methods, side-channel risks, fault injection, and supply-chain vulnerabilities
- Experience with secure boot, firmware update security, cryptographic key management, device identity, attestation, and audit design
- Ability to translate security concepts and threat analyses into precise, testable engineering requirements and architecture decisions
- Proven ability to lead multifunctional technical work and influence senior engineers and leaders without direct authority
- Clear written and verbal communication skills for explaining risk, tradeoffs, and controls to technical and executive audiences
- Experience designing security architectures protecting machine learning weights, intellectual property, and datasets during distributed training and inference
- Participation in or contributions to security standards and industry groups such as the Trusted Computing Group, Open Compute Project Security Project, Linux Foundation, Confidential Computing Consortium, or Arm security working groups
- Knowledge of SmartNIC security and network-device-enforced network or storage isolation
- Understanding of post-quantum cryptography and implications for hardware lifecycle, trusted startup, firmware, and silicon build
- Experience applying confidential-computing technologies to AI training or inference use cases
What the Team is Saying
Graphcore Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials list private medical insurance, dental coverage, health cash plans, mental‑health support, and day‑one U.S. medical options via Cigna/Kaiser. Feedback suggests these offerings are a meaningful strength, particularly in the UK.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Benefits highlight flexible working hours, unlimited annual leave, generous parental leave, and paid U.S. holidays. Feedback suggests work‑life balance is often described positively alongside these policies.
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Retirement Support — UK information cites pension matching up to 5%, while U.S. listings describe a 401(k) with a 100% company match up to 6%. Feedback suggests these structured contributions are viewed as competitive elements of the package.
Graphcore Insights
What We Do
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.
Why Work With Us
Our team is at the forefront of the machine intelligence revolution, enabling innovators from all industries to build AI-native products to expand human potential. What we do at Graphcore really makes a difference.
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Graphcore Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
At Graphcore, we value wellbeing and flexibility to support a healthy work/life balance. Our hybrid approach encourages office-based colleagues to work onsite three days a week, with trusted flexibility built on trust and transparency for everyone.
