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Salary: CAD 120,000 - 160,000 / annual
Xanadu is building quantum computers that are useful and accessible globally. The mission is to develop technologies that solve some of the world's most challenging problems through quantum computing.
As a System Software Developer on the PennyLane Performance Team, you will build a high-performance software stack optimized for quantum hardware resources. This role focuses on enabling early, game-changing applications of quantum computing by developing ultra-low latency communication layers and high-performance extensions.
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop primitives and libraries enabling ultra-low latency communication between devices in distributed, heterogeneous systems (CPU/GPU/FPGA)
- Create high-performance software components, adapting to new hardware platforms and programming paradigms
- Convert abstract algorithm descriptions into efficient and understandable software implementations
- Develop benchmarking frameworks for the compilation and execution pipeline, tracking quantum resources through the stack, and profiling quantum software
- Interpret and communicate complex concepts to the wider team
- Participate in software system specification, design, and quality assurance (requirements gathering, architecture definition, documentation, verification and validation)
- Provide leadership in software best practices including continuous-integration pipelines, unit testing, and code review
This is a new position focused on making PennyLane the highest-performing framework for quantum computing.
Requirements:
- BSc in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Math, or related field
- Demonstrated experience in low-level networking/systems programming (networking/low-latency communication such as RDMA, concurrency, authoring high-performance libraries, OS internals)
- Proficiency in high-performance Modern C++ (C++17/20 preferred) and Python
- Deep understanding of computer architecture (CPU, GPU, memory hierarchy) with hands-on experience optimizing code for runtime and memory efficiency using professional profiling tools (perf, scalene, valgrind)
- Proven ability to rapidly diagnose and resolve complex issues across compiled and interpreted environments using industry-standard debuggers
Preferred Qualifications:
- MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Math, or related field
- Familiarity with code parallelization and accelerators: multithreading (OpenMP, C++ threads), multiprocessing (MPI), GPUs (CUDA, HIP/ROCm), or compiler offload directives
- Experience designing and implementing scalable and reproducible scientific workloads on HPC/supercomputer platforms or cloud hardware (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Expertise in quantum computing demonstrated through extensive coursework, thesis, or peer-reviewed publications
- Experience writing complex quantum workflows and optimizing quantum resource utilization
