Posted 4 weeks ago

Staff Software Engineer (Non-Realtime Controllers)

IonQ

Oxford, England, United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Onsite
Full Time
Software Engineering

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Quantum is now, and it’s built here
Oxford Ionics, now part of IonQ, is pioneering the next generation of quantum computing
Using our world-leading trapped-ion technology, we’re building the most powerful, accurate and reliable quantum systems to tackle problems that today’s supercomputers cannot solve
We’re looking for an enthusiastic and highly technical Staff Software Engineer for our non-realtime controllers team who will thrive in our dynamic cross-disciplinary environment
You’d be working closely with our skilled software engineers, our systems teams who operate the physical quantum computers, and our world-leading quantum scientists to build and operate the software that controls the hardware surrounding our quantum computers
Previous exposure to quantum systems is not required
You will take on our most demanding hardware integrations and the framework work that makes every other controller better
This is a hands-on engineering role: you would be the most experienced engineer writing controllers, not the one directing others to write them
A working quantum computer is far more than the ion trap and its real-time control electronics
It depends on a fleet of supporting hardware, including cryogenic compressors, vacuum pumps, power supplies, lasers, temperature controllers, wavemeters and cameras, that has to be kept observable, controllable and reliable
The timing-critical operations such as gate waveforms and ion transport run on dedicated real-time FPGA systems, while this team owns everything that does not need hard timing guarantees
These services run on general-purpose Linux hardware and must be rock-solid, because a failed compressor or an un-noticed pressure drift takes a whole machine offline
This is a hands-on engineering role. Your influence comes from the code you ship and review, and from the problems you take off everyone else’s plate
Take on our most demanding device integrations, and do the deep diagnosis of problems that only appear against real hardware in a live lab
Remove whole classes of failure across the fleet, rather than instances of them
Improve the shared framework yourself, and bring the existing controllers along with each change
Build the tooling, simulators and test infrastructure that let the whole team move faster
Evolve how our services are deployed and operated as the fleet grows, and make the fleet observable enough that problems are found early
Raise the bar of everyone around you through the code you write and the reviews you give
To be successful, you will need deep systems engineering experience, a track record of shipping and operating reliable services, and the judgement to tell a problem worth solving structurally from one worth patching. We’re looking for someone who wants to stay hands-on in the code at this level rather than move away from it
A reputation as the person people bring the undiagnosable bug to, and the ability to prioritise work with a clear understanding of critical versus urgent items
Experience of hardware and instrument protocols and interfaces such as SCPI, Modbus, serial and Ethernet
Experience building and operating networked services in production such as gRPC or REST, with a real grasp of error handling, observability and failure modes
Expert systems engineering skills. Our controllers are written in Rust, so either solid Rust experience or deep proficiency in another systems language and the appetite to work in a Rust codebase, including async programming
Excellent communication skills both within software and across disciplines