Senior Software Engineer, Runtime

IonQ, Inc.; Oxford; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

IonQ, Inc. in Oxford, UK, is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join the Runtime Software team. You will work with scientists to implement real-time control system behaviours, building abstractions required for experiments and advancing the core execution model for quantum compute systems.

You will shape the Rust-based libraries and execution environment that turn hardware into a fault-tolerant quantum computer, enabling scale and rapid iteration in a high-precision laboratory setting.

Qualifications

• Expert programming skills in a systems programming language.
• Ability to iterate quickly on low-level code in a real-time environment.
• Interest in or experience with Rust is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop abstractions over real-time control hardware.
• Drive ions with nano-second level precision in the control system.
• Collaborate with scientists to translate requirements into software.
• Interface with orchestration, non-realtime control and compiler teams for seamless integration.
• Implement drivers for various real-time devices.
• Develop the execution environment for user programs on our systems.
• Continually improve the APIs used by internal users.

Skills

Programming languages

Systems programming

Rust interest

Job description

Senior Software Engineer, Runtime at IonQ, Oxford, England, United Kingdom. A senior-level full time position in the Compute - Engineering team, listed under software engineering.

The Role

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Runtime Software team at Oxford Ionics / IonQ. In this role, you will be responsible for working directly with the experimental scientists to implement the real-time control system behaviours and provide abstractions they require for their experiments, contributing to the team’s mission of enabling our science teams to experiment and improve the primitive operations which allow compute, and building towards fault tolerant computation.

You’ll play an important part in shaping the core, Rust, libraries and the execution environment which take our system from a collection of hardware to a quantum computer, and support our work in building the world’s most advanced quantum systems.

Responsibilities

In this position, you will work on developing abstractions over real-time control hardware, supporting the effective delivery of a control system capable of repeatedly and reproducibly driving our ions with nano-second level precision, with abstractions which are conducive to both fast iteration and system scaling.

You’ll have the opportunity to accelerate the science core to the development of our systems, and contribute to the core execution model of our quantum computers, contributing directly to the success of building utility-scale quantum computers.

Requirements

To be successful, you will need expert programming skills in a systems programming language and a desire to produce high quality code appropriate to a real-time environment. We’re looking for someone who can quickly iterate on low-level code in a collaborative, cross-disciplinary, environment and contribute effectively within a fast moving, highly technical team.

You’d be a great fit if you

• Have strong programming skills in one or more mainstream programming languages
• Have experience with a systems programming programming
• Have an interest in or experience with Rust

Responsibilities

• Collaborating with scientists to understand their requirements.
• Interfacing with system orchestration, non-realtime control and compiler teams to ensure our work integrates seamlessly with the wider software architecture.
• Implementing drivers for various real-time devices.
• Producing tooling to enable users of our code to iterate rapidly and fearlessly.
• Developing the execution environment for the user programs which run on our systems.
• Continually improving the APIs used by our internal users.