Infrastructure Engineer, Hardware & Networks

Silicon Quantum Computing Pty Ltd; Sydney; On-site; AUD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Silicon Quantum Computing Pty Ltd in Sydney seeks an experienced Infrastructure Engineer for Platform & Infrastructure, focusing on on-premise compute, clusters and Kubernetes orchestration. You will rack, wire, provision, and secure hardware, ensuring repeatable builds and auditable changes.

The role emphasizes hands-on engineering across bare-metal stacks, network fabrics, and IaC, with collaboration across IT, facilities and R&D teams to scale our quantum compute platforms.

Qualifications

• 4+ years in infrastructure, network or platform engineering with hands-on bare-metal work.
• Deep Ansible experience: roles, inventories, idempotent design.
• Solid network engineering across L2/L3: VLANs, routing, firewall policies.
• Strong Linux systems administration and scripting (Bash, Python).
• Infrastructure-as-code beyond CM (Terraform/OpenTofu/Pulumi).
• Production Kubernetes experience, ideally on hardware you own.
• Bare-metal provisioning with MaaS/Metal3/OpenStack Ironic or equivalent.
• IPMI/Redfish management familiarity and firmware tools.
• Core network services: DNS, DHCP, NTP, PXE in production.
• Willingness to work in data centre/comms room environments.
• Proven on-call support for production services.
• Clear technical writing and attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Own bare-metal cluster fleets end to end: racking, cabling, provisioning, firmware management, lifecycle and decommissioning.
• Design, build and operate our network infrastructure with central IT: VLANs, routing, firewall policy and high-speed fabrics.
• Drive infrastructure-as-code with Ansible so builds are repeatable and changes are reviewable.
• Build automated provisioning pipelines from power-on to validated clusters.
• Maintain the cluster shipped with each quantum computer to spec in our labs.
• Run and maintain Kubernetes on hardware: CNI, load balancing and storage integration.
• Operate core services: DNS, DHCP, NTP, PXE, certificates.
• Support BIOS, firmware tuning, BMC configuration, PCIe topology, NUMA alignment.
• Assist research teams with accelerator-hosts and instrument networks.
• Instrument servers, fabric and provisioning paths for telemetry data.
• Plan capacity, power, cooling and rack layout with facilities.
• Monitor platform health, respond to incidents, document architecture for repeatability.

Skills

Bare-metal provisioning

Ansible expertise

Network engineering

Linux administration

Scripting (Bash, Python)

Infrastructure-as-code

Kubernetes on hardware

IPMI/Redfish

On-call rotation

Technical writing

Tools

MaaS

Metal3

OpenStack Ironic

Tinkerbell

xCAT

NetBox

Nornir

containerlab

Batfish

Job description

Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) is at the forefront of global efforts to build the world’s first commercial-scale quantum computer, while delivering quantum-enhanced AI and simulation products to customers today. Backed by over 25 years of technological excellence, SQC is a full-stack quantum computing company that leverages its proprietary manufacturing process to engineer atomic qubits in silicon with 0.13 nanometer precision. It is the most precise semiconductor manufacturing in the world, enabling systems with world-leading algorithmic fidelity, and a decisive advantage in the global quantum computing race. Our products are commercially deployed and generating revenue. Watermelon, our quantum-enhanced AI system, is delivering superior results on real-world problems across energy, telecom and finance. Quantum Twins, our simulation platform, provides unparalleled ability to model quantum systems, accelerating molecule and materials discovery. This is SQC: building the future of computing while delivering quantum impact today.

About The Role

We are hiring an Infrastructure Engineer into Platform & Infrastructure, at the physical and network end of the platform, driven from code: the servers, racks, switches and fabric everything else in the company runs on. Most of our compute is on-premise and growing. Simulation clusters, FPGA accelerator hosts for the quantum control stack, lab and instrument networks, and Kubernetes above all of it. When a team needs a cluster, someone racks it, cables it, wires it into the fabric, configures it in code, gives it addresses, names and time, and hands it over reproducible. Every quantum computer we build also gets a cluster of its own, so the count tracks machines rather than headcount. Soon more than ten edge clusters will exist across the R&D estate. We run these fleets in code: Ansible roles, version-controlled inventories, declarative network configuration, and provisioning that goes from bare metal to a secured Kubernetes node without anyone typing into a terminal. Some of what you connect is a general-purpose compute node. Some is a control host with accelerator cards in it, metres from a dilution refrigerator, with timing requirements ordinary enterprise networks never have. Based at our Sydney facility, you will work with central IT, facilities and the research and engineering teams whose hardware you stand up. This is a role for someone equally at home in a comms room and a Git repository, who wants every build to be repeatable and every change reviewable.

Role Responsibilities

• Own the bare-metal cluster server fleets end to end: racking, cabling, provisioning, firmware and BMC management, lifecycle and decommissioning, across central, research and control clusters
• Design, build and operate our network infrastructure together with central IT: switching, routing, VLANs and segmentation, link and route aggregation, firewall policy, and the high-speed fabrics behind the compute and storage
• Drive all of it through Ansible and infrastructure-as-code, so builds are repeatable and changes are reviewable
• Build and maintain the automated provisioning pipelines that take a new rack from power-on to a validated, benchmarked, ready cluster
• Build the cluster that ships with each quantum computer, to the same specification every time, in our own labs
• Run and maintain Kubernetes on this hardware, including CNI, load balancing, storage integration and node lifecycle
• Operate core network services: DNS, DHCP, NTP and time distribution, PXE and netboot, certificates
• Support hardware bring-up: BIOS and firmware tuning, BMC configuration, PCIe topology and NUMA alignment on accelerator hosts
• Support the compute, control and lab hardware that research and engineering teams depend on, including accelerator-card hosts and instrument networks
• Instrument the servers, fabric and provisioning path so our monitoring and telemetry function has something to work with
• Plan capacity, power, cooling and rack layout alongside facilities and procurement
• Monitor platform and network health, respond to incidents, fix the underlying cause rather than the symptom, and document architecture, operational procedures and validation results so the next person can run what you built

Essential

Your experience

• 4+ years in infrastructure, network or platform engineering, with substantial hands-on bare-metal work
• Deep Ansible experience: roles, inventories, idempotent design, and how to test and structure a real playbook estate
• Solid network engineering across layers 2 and 3: VLANs, subnetting, routing protocols such as BGP or OSPF, link aggregation, firewall and ACL policies
• Strong Linux systems administration and scripting (Bash, Python), including kernel, drivers, cgroups and system services
• Infrastructure-as-code beyond configuration management (Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi or equivalent) and a Git-based change workflow
• Production Kubernetes experience, ideally on hardware you also own
• Bare-metal provisioning with tools such as MaaS, Metal3, OpenStack Ironic, Tinkerbell, xCAT or equivalent
• Working knowledge of firmware, BIOS, and BMC management via IPMI or Redfish
• Core network services in production: DNS, DHCP, NTP, PXE
• Comfortable in a data centre or comms room: racking, structured cabling, optics and transceivers, out-of-band management
• Troubleshooting that crosses layers, from a marginal optic to a route that never propagated to a pod that will not schedule, and the communication skills to explain it to teams who are not networking or infrastructure specialists
• Experience on an on-call rotation supporting production services
• Clear technical writing and attention to detail

Nice to have

• Low-latency or high-throughput fabrics: 100/400G Ethernet, InfiniBand, RoCE
• EKS Anywhere experience
• Precision time distribution (PTP, White Rabbit or similar)
• Network automation and source-of-truth tooling (NetBox, Nornir, containerlab, Batfish)
• Vendor platforms such as Arista EOS, Cisco NX-OS, Juniper Junos, Dell OS10
• HPC, scientific or research computing environments, including batch schedulers such as Slurm
• Cluster benchmarking and performance validation, and the automation around it
• Monitoring and telemetry (Prometheus, Grafana, syslog, Filebeat)
• PCIe accelerator hardware (FPGA or GPU) knowledge, including firmware and driver management
• Container runtimes beyond Docker (Podman, Singularity, Enroot)
• Go or Rust alongside Python
• Repeatable build-out of many identical sites or clusters, including remote and air-gapped ones
• Laboratory or scientific instrument networks
• Curiosity about quantum computing (no physics degree required)

Equal opportunity

SQC is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse perspectives and experiences, and encourage applications from candidates who may not meet every listed requirement. If you’re excited about the role and believe you can contribute, we encourage you to apply.

Export controls

This position may require access to export-controlled information or technology. Employment may be subject to applicable export control laws and may require eligibility assessment based on factors such as nationality, citizenship, or residency, and, where necessary, obtaining relevant export licenses or approvals.

About SQC

SQC was founded by renowned physicist and materials scientist Michelle Simmons, who pioneered the field of atomic electronics, including the development of the world’s first single-atom transistor and the first integrated circuit built with atomic precision. Our Chair, Simon Segars, former CEO of Arm, is a leader in the semiconductor industry and was instrumental in developing the processors that powered the mobile computing revolution. As a full-stack company with in-house QPU manufacturing, SQC can design, produce and test new quantum chips in under a week, enabling rapid iteration and a decisive advantage in the race to build the world’s first commercial-scale quantum computer. SQC is a high-accountability environment built on a simple principle: Every Atom Counts. If you’re looking to play a meaningful role in building the next frontier of computing, we’d love to hear from you.