Staff Software Engineer, Runtime

Oxford Ionics; Oxford; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Oxford Ionics, now part of IonQ, is pioneering the next generation of quantum computing. We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join our Runtime Software team and help translate real-time control requirements from scientists into robust, low-latency software.

You will shape the core Rust libraries and execution environment, enabling fault-tolerant computation on future quantum systems. You will collaborate with cross-disciplinary teams to drive rapid iteration, build interfaces for

Qualifications

• Strong programming skills in one or more mainstream languages.
• Experience with systems programming.
• Experience with real-time Linux or embedded systems.
• Interest or experience with Rust.
• Excellent communication across software and disciplines.
• Adaptable to rapidly evolving requirements.
• Capable of high-quality code reviews and testing.
• Desire to maximise impact through quick iteration.
• Eager to learn and develop your skills.

Responsibilities

• Collaborating with scientists to understand requirements.
• Interfacing with system orchestration, non-realtime control and compiler teams.
• Interfacing with FPGA and electronics teams to shape system architecture.
• Implementing drivers for various real-time devices.
• Producing tooling to enable rapid iteration.
• Developing the execution environment for user programs.
• Continuously evaluating and improving APIs for internal users.

Skills

Strong programming languages

Systems programming

Real-time Linux / embedded systems

Rust experience

Excellent communication

Adaptive to evolving requirements

High-quality code reviews & testing

Rapid iteration mindset

Eager to learn

Job description

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. Joining Oxford Ionics means becoming part of a global IonQ team that is transforming the future of quantum technology - faster, at scale, and with real world impact.

IonQ, Inc. [NYSE: IONQ] is the world’s leading quantum company delivering solutions to solve the world’s most complex problems. IonQ’s newest generation quantum computers, IonQ Tempo and IonQ Forte Enterprise, are the latest in cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners such as Amazon Web Services, AstraZeneca, and NVIDIA achieve 20x performance results. The company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance in 2025.

The company is accelerating its technology roadmap and intends to deliver the world’s most powerful quantum computers with 2 million qubits by 2030 to accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. IonQ’s advancements in quantum networking position the company as a leader in building the quantum internet.

The Role:

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our Runtime Software team at 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.

Key responsibilities include:

• 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.
• Interfacing with FPGA and electronics teams to shape the overall system 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 evaluating the shape of our APIs and improving them for our internal users.

Requirements:

To be successful, you will need strong programming skills in a systems programming language, experience with software system design, 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.

• Have strong programming skills in one or more mainstream programming languages
• Have experience with a systems programming programming
• Have experience with real‑time Linux or embedded systems or another low‑latency computing environment
• Have an interest in or experience with Rust
• Have developed excellent communication skills both within the context of software and across disciplines
• Are comfortable working with rapidly evolving requirements
• Are used to maintaining and producing high quality code reviews and appropriate testing
• Have a desire to maximise impact through quick iteration and short cycles of learning and improvement
• Are eager to learn and develop your skills