What are the responsibilities and job description for the IT Director position at graphcore?
About us
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.
The Team
You’ll lead the USA distributed IT organisation composed of infrastructure engineers, support teams, and specialists across enterprise IT and lab environments. The global teams operate in a collaborative, fast-paced environment, partnering closely with other regional IT teams, engineering and business functions. This is a critical leadership role at a pivotal stage of growth, offering the opportunity to shape IT strategy, build new systems, and directly impact the company’s ability to innovate and scale.
Responsibilities and Duties
• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing IT team, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement
• Partner with other regional IT teams and engineering teams to support lab environments, development infrastructure, and high-performance computing needs
• Act as the senior escalation point for USA IT service delivery and operational issues
• Manage vendor relationships, contracts, and external service providers
• Develop and manage IT budgets, forecasting, and cost optimisation strategies
• Define and execute the USA IT strategy aligned with other regional IT teams and business objectives
• Drive scalability, reliability, and performance across IT systems and services
• Define and track KPIs, SLAs, and service metrics to continuously improve IT performance
Essential:
• Proven leadership experience in IT management or IT Director-level roles
• Strong understanding of enterprise IT infrastructure
• Good understanding of troubleshooting principles and methodical problem-solving
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills at executive level
• Solid understanding of cybersecurity principles, risk management, and compliance
• Experience managing and scaling IT teams in a high-growth environment
• Strong problem-solving skills with a strategic and operational mindset
• Experience leading global or distributed teams
Desirable
• Experience supporting engineering or R&D environments, including lab infrastructure
• Familiarity with high-performance computing (HPC) environments
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 program (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.