Quantum Software Engineer - Compiler & Control Systems
Design and build quantum compilation software bridging quantum circuits, error-correction, and hardware control systems at Infleqtion, primarily using Python with C++ or Rust.
- Compensation
- $145K–$170K / yr
- Location
- Chicago, Illinois, United States
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, physics, or a directly related field
- High proficiency in programming, with fluency in Python preferred; C++/Rust or systems language also welcome
- Experience designing, building, or maintaining complex software systems (compilers, IRs, runtimes, simulators, distributed systems, embedded/control, or scientific software)
- Ability to reason about software interfaces, data models, APIs, and tradeoffs between abstraction, performance, and maintainability
- Experience with software testing and debugging including unit tests, integration tests, type checking, version control, and CI/CD
- Professional verbal, written, and presentation skills at all organizational levels
- Ability to work in a collaborative, cross-functional, team-oriented, and matrixed environment
- Ability to learn complex topics quickly, including willingness to develop quantum-computing familiarity
- In-office presence required three days per week
- Travel domestically and potentially internationally up to 10%
Nice to have
- Experience with compiler infrastructure, scheduling, instruction selection, IR, program analysis, or code generation
- Experience with real-time, embedded, hardware-control, or scientific-instrumentation software
- Familiarity with quantum error correction, decoders, stabilizer simulation, fault tolerance, or syndrome processing
- Familiarity with quantum computing concepts such as native gate decomposition, qubit mapping/routing, circuit scheduling, and hardware-aware compilation
- Experience with open-source quantum software frameworks (Cirq, Qiskit, Stim, or similar)
- Experience developing or optimizing workloads for HPC environments including GPU-accelerated or distributed systems
- Backend development experience with FastAPI, PostgreSQL, or SQLAlchemy
- Cloud development experience, especially on GCP or AWS
- Familiarity with security best practices (access control, encryption at rest, key rotation, logging)
Full description
Position Summary
This Quantum Software Engineer role will join the Compiler Team within Infleqtion’s Quantum Software organization. The role will design, build, and maintain quantum compilation software, with particular responsibility for the interface between quantum circuits, error-correction software, and hardware control systems.
The role combines hands-on software development, system design, code review, and R&D. It will contribute to co-design efforts spanning applications, algorithms, compilation, error decoding, hardware, and control. Ideal candidates have a strong software engineering background and are interested in learning the quantum-computing and hardware-control context needed for the role.
This role is open to both entry-level and senior-level candidates.
Job Responsibilities
- The duties and responsibilities outlined below include essential functions of the role. Depending on business needs, this role may perform a combination of some or all of the following duties. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change, or new ones may be assigned.
- Conduct R&D toward advances in quantum compilation, execution, and fault-tolerant quantum computing, similar to work described in and .
- Design and implement software interfaces and intermediate representations that translate compiled quantum circuits into executable control-system programs, including gate operations, timing, qubit movement, measurement, and other hardware functionality.
- Develop software that connects quantum error-correction circuits with decoding and execution systems, including representation and processing of measurement results, syndrome data, decoder outputs, and Pauli-frame updates.
- Collaborate with hardware, control, and experimental teams to define stable, well-documented interfaces between compilation software and the control system.
- Build tooling to validate, simulate, test, and debug circuit-to-control translations, including timing constraints, hardware capabilities, and execution results.
- Deploy software optimizations to our cloud platform Superstaq using industry-grade software engineering procedures, including documentation, linting, testing, type checking, and code review.
- Contribute to development of government and commercial proposals and execution on global programs.
- Collaborate with experimental physicists, control engineers, and software engineers to bridge theoretical concepts and practical implementation.
- Engage with the broader scientific community by publishing research findings in scientific journals and presenting at conferences.
- Stay up to date with developments in compiler design, quantum computer architecture, control systems, error correction, decoding, and related fields.
- Provide guidance and support to other team members, fostering a collaborative research environment.