Staff Firmware Engineer, PsiQuantum
$200-228k
+ Equity
Office located in Palo Alto, CA
Quantum computer builder
Open for applications
Quantum computer builder
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
$200-228k
+ Equity
Office located in Palo Alto, CA
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To build and deploy useful, fault tolerant quantum computers.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field
- Minimum of 10 years hand-on firmware development and architecture experience leading to a successful commercial product
- Experience architecting solutions for multiple products and/or sets of control boards
- Expert level firmware development in C/C++
- Intermediate or advanced Python for control and test interfaces
- Familiarity with build systems, version control, and test driven development
- Schematic review and hardware debugging tools and techniques
- RTOS, bare-metal, linux development experience
- Communications protocol development
What the job involves
- The mission of PsiQuantum's Staff Firmware Engineering role is to contribute to the development of robust and scalable firmware solutions which are integral to the underlying quantum computer system
- The Firmware Team is part of the larger electronics team at PsiQuantum and collaborates with the hardware, digital design, system architecture, controls software, and quantum system validation teams
- Collaborate with hardware and system architecture teams to define system-level architectures, board designs, and component selection, with emphasis on timing, signal integrity, and control requirements
- Lead cross-functional technical discussions to drive firmware architectural decisions and align implementation choices with system performance, reliability, and scalability goals
- Define, implement, and maintain well-specified interfaces between firmware, hardware, and higher-level software, including low-level drivers, communication protocols, and python APIs
- Design, implement, and validate embedded firmware across bare-metal, RTOS, and embedded Linux environments, including device drivers, closed-loop control algorithms, calibration routines, and deterministic state machines
- Partner closely with controls, hardware, systems, and test engineers to integrate firmware into complex systems and ensure correct end-to-end behavior under nominal and fault conditions
- Mentor senior and mid-level firmware engineers
Our take
Quantum computing will change the world more than any other imminent technological development, and PsiQuantum sits at the forefront of the charge to build the first quantum computer that will actually work.
The company is unique for the scale of their ambitions. Rather than focusing on what they term “intermediate milestones” like building smaller proof of concept systems, PsiQuantum builds the first large-scale, error-corrected computer, using photonics to deliver over 1,000,000 qubits (current quantum machines have yet to cross the 1,000 qubit mark).
There are plenty of companies building quantum computers, including the likes of IBM and Google, but these prototypical machines lack the size to correct errors, making them exponentially less useful than what PsiQuantum aims for. While other companies operate in the same sphere, PsiQuantum is unequivocally a leader in its field, founded by world-class academics and recently securing $1B in funding, making it the largest funding round for a quantum computing startup.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
16% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Jun 2025
$1bn
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Jun 2024
$125m
CONVERTIBLE
Total funding: $2.7bn
Company benefits
- Financial & Retirement: 401(k) with company match, equity grants, and access to financial wellness tools and planning resources.
- Health: Competitive health coverage for you and your dependents that go beyond your standard medical, dental & vision.
- Wellness: $200 quarterly health reimbursement, 12 therapy + 6 coaching sessions with Modern Health for you and depndents, and annual membership to Care.com.
- Time Off: Discretionary Time Off (DTO) for full-time employees in addition to federal holidays and an end-of-year company shut-down.
- Family Leave: 12 weeks of paid parental leave with the support of a dedicated leave consultant.
- Flexible WOrk: Work in office, hybrid, or remote depending on your team and location.
Company HQ
Palo Alto, CA
Leadership
Jeremy O'Brien
(Co-Founder & CEO)Prior to founding PsiQuantum, researched and taught at universities across the world, including Bristol, Stanford, Osaka, Sydney and Queensland.
Mark Thompson
(Co-Founder & Chief Technologist)Previously worked as an R&D Engineer at Toshiba and was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. Is currently a Professor of Quantum Photonics at Bristol University as well as Chief Technologist at PsiQuantum.
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