Staff Software Engineer, Non-Realtime Controllers

Physics World; Oxford; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

IonQ in Oxford is seeking a hands-on Staff Software Engineer for the non-realtime controllers team. You will work with software engineers, the hardware teams operating quantum computers, and scientists to build and operate software that controls hardware around quantum systems.

Prior quantum experience is not required, but deep systems knowledge is essential. You will take on demanding hardware integrations, improve the core framework, and own critical controller development.

Qualifications

• Deep systems engineering experience.
• Proven track record shipping and operating reliable services.

Responsibilities

• Take on the most demanding device integrations and diagnose issues against real hardware in a live lab.
• Remove whole classes of failure across the fleet, not just individual instances.
• Improve the shared framework and bring controllers along with each change.
• Build tooling, simulators and test infrastructure to accelerate the team.
• Evolve deployment and operational patterns as the fleet grows, ensuring observability.
• Raise the bar through the code you write and the reviews you give.

Job description

About IonQ

IonQ, Inc . [NYSE: IONQ] is the world's leading quantum platform and merchant supplier - delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ's newest generation of quantum computers, the IonQ Tempo, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners including Amazon Web Services, and AstraZeneca achieve 20x performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance .

Job Details

About IonQ

IonQ, Inc . [NYSE: IONQ] is the world's leading quantum platform and merchant supplier - delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ's newest generation of quantum computers, the IonQ Tempo, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners including Amazon Web Services, and AstraZeneca achieve 20x performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance .

Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, IonQ has operations in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Our quantum computing services are available through all major cloud providers, while we also meet the needs of networking and sensing customers across land, sea, air, and space. IonQ is making quantum platforms more accessible and impactful than ever before.

Location: Oxford, UK

Office commitment: Hybrid

The Role

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.

Responsibilities

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.

Key Responsibilities Include

• 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.

Requirements

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