Senior Quantum Software Engineer

ORCA Computing Ltd; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

ORCA Computing seeks a leader to own the developer software stack, including the SDK, APIs, and integrations for hybrid quantum-classical workflows. You will drive an end-to-end roadmap across science, engineering, and commercial teams, ensuring robust documentation, tutorials, and a thriving developer community around ORCA's photonic quantum processors.

You will coordinate across research, engineering, and product groups to deliver user-focused software that accelerates adoption of ORCA's

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing, building, and maintaining production-quality software libraries, SDKs, or developer tools.
• Excellent Python skills and modern software engineering practices: testing, CI/CD, packaging, code review, and git workflows.
• Experience owning software end to end: roadmaps, feature coordination, and multi-contributor codebases.
• Strong ability to produce clear documentation, tutorials, and examples for developers.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategy and design of ORCA's SDK and developer APIs for on-prem and as-a-Service environments.
• Own and deliver the SDK roadmap in coordination with science, engineering, and commercial teams.
• Manage the codebase and maintain documentation and tutorials.
• Lead integrations with other software tools and frameworks (CUDA-Q, PyTorch, JAX).
• Provide escalation support to Customer Success and ensure fixes are durable.
• Maintain and evolve online tools hosting the ORCA SDK.
• Prepare software demonstrations for pre-sales and engagements.

Skills

Python

Software design

CI/CD

Documentation

Communication

Team leadership

Education

Master's or PhD in a relevant field

Tools

CUDA-Q

PyTorch

JAX

Job description

Reports to: Head of Applications & Software

Job Type: Full time

Location: Central London, hybrid

About us

ORCA Computing ("ORCA") is at the forefront of a new era in high-performance computing, developing full-stack photonic quantum systems designed to transform how organisations tackle machine learning, generative AI, and complex optimisation challenges in data centre environments. Headquartered in London, ORCA has delivered eleven on-premises quantum computers worldwide - demonstrating that its technology is not theoretical but already delivering real world results.

At the core of ORCA's innovation is its hybrid quantum-classical architecture, engineered for seamless integration into existing AI and HPC infrastructure. ORCA PT Series quantum systems are room temperature and rack-mounted which connect directly to GPU clusters via NVIDIA's CUDA-Q platform, enabling accelerated AI workloads delivering advantages over traditional silicon-based systems. Backed by a strong portfolio of patent families spanning photonic integrated circuits, quantum memory, and multiplexing technologies, ORCA is enabling enterprises, research institutions, and HPC operators to unlock new levels of performance, efficiency, and scalability.

With the recent launch its next-generation PT-3 system, ORCA is entering a pivotal phase of growth and technological advancement. Its solutions are already being embedded into generative AI pipelines, delivering measurable improvements in model performance, while also addressing the rising energy demands of large-scale AI adoption. With a focus on practical deployment and a clear roadmap to fault-tolerant quantum computing, ORCA is leading the development and deployment of quantum technology, providing a commercially viable path to the future of computing.

What will you do

ORCA's systems are running in production with customers in data centres around the world with a growing community of applications developers seeking to easily and rapidly adopt hybrid quantum classical capabilities to run in on-prem, cloud and hybrid environments. Our customers and partners are increasingly evolving towards complex AI for Science workloads that cut across computing, networking and agentic technologies. In this role you'll take ownership of ORCA's developer software stack which is our interface to this environment: our SDK, tools, algorithm libraries and integrations that let researchers, enterprises, and developers develop algorithms and applications for ORCA's photonic quantum processors. You will work across science, engineering, and commercial teams to make our software easy to adopt and effective in supporting a growing user community.

The main responsibilities include:

• Lead the strategy and design of ORCA's SDK and developer APIs that enable customers, ISVs and open-source community to build, deploy and integrate hybrid quantum classical applications in on-prem and as-a-Service environments using ORCA's photonic quantum processors:
• own and deliver our SDK roadmap in coordination with science, engineering, and commercial teams;
• manage the codebase;
• maintain documentation and tutorials.
• Lead the development of ORCA's integrations with other quantum and classical software tools and frameworks, such as NVIDIA's CUDA-Q, PyTorch and JAX.
• Provide escalation support for ORCA's Customer Success team leading root-cause analysis, communicating clearly with customers and internal stakeholders, and make sure fixes stick.
• Maintain and evolve the online tools that host the ORCA SDK
• Prepare software demonstrations that support pre-sales and commercial engagements.

What will you bring - required

• Extensive experience designing, building, and maintaining production-quality software libraries, SDKs, or developer tools.
• Excellent Python skills and command of modern software engineering practices: testing, CI/CD, packaging, code review, and git-based workflows.
• Experience owning software end to end: defining and maintaining a roadmap, coordinating feature development, and managing a codebase across contributors.
• A strong track record of producing clear, usable documentation, tutorials, and examples for developer audiences.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to work across science, engineering, and commercial teams and to engage directly with users.
• Master's or PhD in a relevant field (physics, computer science, or equivalent), or equivalent professional experience.

Nice to have

• Experience with GPU programming and/or HPC (CUDA, multi-GPU, accelerated simulation).
• Experience with quantum software frameworks (CUDA-Q, PennyLane, Qiskit, etc.).
• Experience releasing and maintaining open-source software and growing a developer community around it.
• Experience integrating scientific software with AI/ML tooling.
• Previous ownership of customer-facing/pre-sales responsibilities
• A publication or open-source track record.

Who we are looking for

• Ability to work both autonomously and collaboratively.
• A user-focused mindset: cares about developer experience and building software people genuinely want to use.
• Excellent communication skills, particularly in a commercial setting.
• Enthusiasm for new technologies and a real interest in quantum computing.

Joining ORCA Computing offers the opportunity to work at the forefront of quantum technology, where innovation is already delivering real-world impact. Across commercial, operational, and product roles, you'll collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to bring advanced quantum systems to market and help integrate quantum capabilities into modern AI and data centre ecosystems.

ORCA provides a rare chance to contribute to a pivotal moment in the evolution of computing. With a culture built on ownership, collaboration, and ambition, the company empowers individuals to solve complex challenges and shape how next-generation quantum technologies are developed, deployed, and scaled across industries - driving a more efficient and powerful future for AI and compute.