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IonQ is the world's leading quantum computing platform and merchant supplier, delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. The company operates globally with headquarters in College Park, Maryland, and offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. IonQ's quantum computers, including the latest IonQ Tempo generation, have achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity and set world records in quantum computing performance.
This role is part of Oxford Ionics, now part of IonQ, which pioneers next-generation quantum computing using trapped-ion technology. You will join the non-realtime controllers team as a Senior Software Engineer, working in a hybrid capacity from the Oxford office.
You will own areas of the hardware control surface end-to-end, from device protocol design through to reliable service operation across the fleet. A quantum computer depends on a fleet of supporting hardware including cryogenic compressors, vacuum pumps, power supplies, lasers, temperature controllers, wavemeters, and cameras. While timing-critical operations run on dedicated real-time FPGA systems, your team owns everything that does not require hard timing guarantees—services running on general-purpose Linux hardware that must be rock-solid, as hardware failures take entire machines offline.
Key responsibilities include: owning a group of device controllers end-to-end, covering API design, implementation, rollout, and ongoing operational health; making services robust against real-world instrument failures; bringing devices onto the current framework and rolling them out across the fleet without disrupting experiments; improving the shared framework where problems are common across controllers; working closely with systems teams and scientists to strengthen observability, health checking, and alerting; and raising code standards through review and mentoring less experienced engineers.
This is a hands-on engineering role that remains hands-on as you grow. You will work closely with skilled software engineers, systems teams operating the physical quantum computers, and world-leading quantum scientists. Previous exposure to quantum systems is not required.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Strong systems engineering skills; controllers are written in Rust, so either solid Rust experience or deep proficiency in another systems language with appetite to work in Rust codebases, including async programming
- Experience designing and operating networked services such as gRPC or REST, with real grasp of error handling, observability, and failure modes
- Experience with hardware and instrument protocols and interfaces such as SCPI, Modbus, serial, and Ethernet
- Experience working with Linux-based systems and interfacing with hardware
- Track record of making software behave well against unreliable external dependencies
- Ability to own a problem area with little supervision and judge where robustness is worth the effort
- Comfortable owning the production behavior of what you build, not just its correctness in test
- Excellent communication skills both within software and across disciplines
- Interest in helping other engineers improve without wanting to stop building yourself
