QEC Theorist — Zurich, Flexible Work & Equity

ZuriQ; Zürich; Hybrid; CHF 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Flexible home office

30 days holiday

Job summary

ZuriQ in Zurich, Switzerland seeks a Quantum Error Correction Theorist to design, analyze, and optimize error correction protocols for trapped-ion architectures. You will bridge theory and hardware, collaborating with experimentalists and software teams to enable practical fault tolerance on scalable ion-trap platforms.

The role emphasizes QEC code design, architecture-aware schemes, decoding strategy development, and close interaction with external partners and academic collaborators.

Qualifications

• Masters or PhD in Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Demonstrated expertise in quantum error correction and fault-tolerant quantum computing.
• Strong analytical and numerical modelling skills.
• Experience with realistic noise models and hardware constraints.
• Proficiency in Python and scientific computing tools (NumPy, SciPy, JAX, QuTiP, STIM, or similar).

Responsibilities

• Design and analyze quantum error correction codes suited for trapped-ion systems (e.g., surface codes, color codes, LDPC codes, bosonic codes).
• Develop architecture-aware fault-tolerant schemes considering realistic noise models (dephasing, motional mode heating, crosstalk, gate infidelity, leakage).
• Optimize syndrome extraction protocols using native trapped-ion gates.
• Model logical error rates under hardware-constrained connectivity in a 2D ion shuttling architecture.
• Collaborate with experimental teams to validate QEC protocols on real hardware.
• Contribute to threshold analysis, decoding strategy development, and resource estimation for large-scale algorithms.
• Publish findings in leading journals and present at major conferences.

Skills

Quantum error correction

Fault-tolerant quantum computing

Numerical modelling

Noise modelling

Education

Master's degree in Physics/Math/CS

PhD in a related field

Tools

Python

NumPy

SciPy

JAX

QuTiP

STIM

Qiskit/Cirq SDKs

Job description

ZuriQ in Zurich, Switzerland seeks a Quantum Error Correction Theorist to design, analyze, and optimize error correction protocols for trapped-ion architectures. You will bridge theory and hardware, collaborating with experimentalists and software teams to enable practical fault tolerance on scalable ion-trap platforms.

The role emphasizes QEC code design, architecture-aware schemes, decoding strategy development, and close interaction with external partners and academic collaborators.