Axelera AI is not your regular deep-tech startup. We are creating the next-generation AI platform to support anyone who wants to help advancing humanity and improve the world around us.
In just four years, we have raised a total of \(120 million and have built a world-class team of 220+ employees (including 49+ PhDs with more than 40,000 citations), both remotely from 17 different countries and with offices in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, the UK, headquartered at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
We have also launched our Metis™ AI Platform, which achieves a 3-5x increase in efficiency and performance, and have visibility into a strong business pipeline exceeding \)100 million.
Our unwavering commitment to innovation has firmly established us as a global industry pioneer.
As a Senior Test Engineer at Axelera AI, you will own end-to-end quality for our AI software stack running on the Metis inference accelerator. You will work directly with hardware and software engineers to validate functional correctness, inference performance, and model accuracy across multiple deployment platforms. This is a high-impact, hands-on engineering role — not a process management position.
You will define testing strategy, build automation infrastructure, and be the quality signal that ships product confidently.
Test Strategy & Ownership
Define and own the end-to-end test strategy for the Axelera AI software stack, spanning functional, performance, accuracy, and regression testing.
Architect and maintain test frameworks that scale across multiple hardware platforms and software stack versions.
Drive decisions on tooling adoption and testing infrastructure with limited supervision.
Hardware-Software Co-Validation
Design and execute test plans that validate software behaviour on the Metis AIPU, including driver interfaces, runtime correctness, and hardware-software integration points.
Develop tests that catch issues arising at the boundary between compiler output, runtime scheduling, and accelerator execution.
Performance & Accuracy Testing
Build and maintain benchmarks for latency, throughput, and power efficiency across supported models and hardware configurations.
Implement and maintain automated test pipelines integrated into CI/CD workflows (e.g., Write robust test scripts in Python and Shell; Monitor test infrastructure health and drive improvements in test reliability and execution speed.
Analyze, reproduce, and clearly document software defects; Participate in design reviews and architecture discussions to raise quality concerns early in the development cycle.
Provide technical mentorship to junior SQA engineers and contribute to team processes and best practices.
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
~5+ years of hands-on software quality assurance experience, with at least 2 years in a senior or lead capacity.
~ Strong proficiency in Python for test automation; working knowledge of C/C++ and Shell scripting.
~ Proven experience building and maintaining CI/CD-integrated test pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins, or equivalent).
~ Solid understanding of software testing methodologies: unit, integration, system, regression, performance, and accuracy testing.
~ Strong debugging and root-cause analysis skills across complex, multi-layered software systems.
~ Familiarity with Git-based development workflows and version control best practices.
~ Excellent written and verbal communication skills; Experience testing AI/ML systems: model compilation pipelines, quantization validation, or inference runtime correctness.
Exposure to NPU, AIPU, GPU, or other inference accelerator bring-up and hardware-software co-validation.
Experience with power testing in embedded or edge AI deployment scenarios.
Prior experience in a startup or fast-paced hardware-software product environment.
You have mapped coverage gaps in the existing test suite and delivered a remediation plan within the first 90 days.
You are a trusted technical voice in design reviews and cross-functional planning sessions.
We offer a flexible working arrangement, with options to:
Work fully remotely from any European country (incl. Relocate with us and work from Italy (Florence or Milan) or the Netherlands (Amsterdam or Eindhoven).