Software Architect

Entangled Future; Netherlands; Remote; EUR 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Qblox in Delft, Netherlands, is seeking a Software Architect to own the technical vision for scaling our control stack from hundreds to thousands of qubits. You will shape the long-term architectural direction while staying grounded in hardware realities, writing code when needed, and guiding teams toward a shared technical direction.

The role emphasizes strategic leadership, cross-layer expertise from firmware to high-level APIs, and collaboration with product managers and application engineers

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering across multiple layers of the stack.
• Deep embedded systems expertise including hardware interfaces and timing constraints.
• Experience with coordinating across hardware, firmware, and software teams.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Architecture: Define the long-term architectural direction.
• Define the Control Stack: Design how firmware, embedded software, compilers, and high-level APIs work together.
• Plan for Scale: Architect solutions that scale 10x without major rewrites.
• Enable Product Vision: Align architectural decisions with product needs.
• Collaborative Direction: Build consensus on abstractions, interfaces, and trade-offs.
• Bridge Teams & Establish Patterns: Connect hardware, firmware, software, product, and application teams.

Skills

Software architecture

Embedded systems

FPGA expertise

Systems thinking

Hands-on coding

Tools

Python

Job description

Software Architect at Qblox, Delft, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. A mid-level full time position in the Software Engineering team, listed under software engineering.

You will own the technical vision for how our control stack scales from hundreds to thousands of qubits and beyond. This role is both strategic and tactical: you will shape the long-term architectural direction while maintaining a firm understanding of the hardware realities underneath. You are shaping a vision, not micro-managing progress, and we need a leader who makes engineers better, unblocks them, and builds consensus around technical direction.

2. Tactical Execution

• Unblock Teams: Jump into the hardest technical challenges when teams are stuck, including instruction scheduling bottlenecks, timing constraints, compiler optimization, and distributed control.
• Debug Across Layers: Trace issues from Python down through the compiler, firmware, and FPGA when things do not work as expected.
• Code When it Helps: Write critical code, prototypes, or proof-of-concepts to validate architectural decisions or show teams the path forward.
• Guide, Don't Gatekeep: Review designs with a focus on helping engineers succeed, rather than finding reasons to say no.
• Listen to Users: Work with customer-facing teams and customers to understand where the architecture is helping or getting in the way.
• Experience: 10+ years of software engineering with deep experience across multiple layers of the stack.
• Embedded & FPGA Expertise: Deep embedded systems expertise (hardware interfaces, resource-constrained environments) and a strong understanding of what FPGAs can and cannot do, including timing constraints and firmware/hardware interaction.
• Systems Thinking & Performance: A track record of designing architectures that span from low-level hardware to high-level APIs, with experience optimizing for latency, throughput, and determinism.
• Hands-On Credibility: You still write code when needed and earn respect through technical depth, not title.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Architecture
• Define the Control Stack: Design how firmware, embedded software, compilers, and high-level APIs work together as we scale to thousands of qubits.
• Plan for Scale: Architect solutions that work today and scale 10x without fundamental rewrites.
• Enable Product Vision: Work with product managers and application engineers to translate user needs into architectural decisions that actually work.
• Collaborative Direction: Build consensus on abstractions, interfaces, and trade-offs, and convince teams through clarity, not authority.
• Bridge Teams & Establish Patterns: Connect hardware, firmware, software, product, and application engineering teams around a shared technical vision, defining standards that teams actually want to follow.

Nice to Have

• Domain Knowledge: A physics, quantum computing, or scientific computing background is nice to have, but not required.
• Compiler Experience: Background in compiler design, ASTs, intermediate representations (IRs), or transpilers.
• Scientific Ecosystem: Experience with quantum or scientific Python software such as Qiskit, Q-CTRL, QUA, Cirq, CUDA-Q, QCoDeS, NumPy, SciPy, xarray, or pytest.
• Distributed & Control Systems: Experience with digital signal processing, control systems, or coordinating multiple processors with tight timing requirements.
• Customer-Facing Experience: You have talked to users, understand their pain points, and let that inform your architectural decisions.

Benefits

• Impact: Take on a central architectural role shaping how quantum control software scales globally.
• Innovation: Thrive in an interdisciplinary, cutting-edge environment at the intersection of high-level software, low-level firmware, and quantum hardware.
• Growth: Work with a fast-moving, high-performance team building tools used by leading quantum researchers worldwide.