Senior Software Engineer, PsiQuantum
Control & Calibration
$185-205k
+ Equity
Office located in Palo Alto, CA
Quantum computer builder
Be an early applicant
Quantum computer builder
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
$185-205k
+ Equity
Office located in Palo Alto, CA
201-500 employees
Company mission
To create the world’s first useful fault tolerant, error corrected quantum computer that will solve otherwise impossible problems.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years professional software engineering; 3+ years in feedback-control, calibration, robotics, or analogous real-time domains
- Fluency in Python or Julia, particularly in the context of scientific computing, AI/ML, or signal processing
- Fluency in Rust and/or C++17+; comfortable writing lock-free, wait-free, and numerically stable code paths
- Proven track record delivering production systems with real-time or ultra-low-latency requirements
- Hands-on experience interfacing with hardware over PCIe, Ethernet, or custom serial buses; confident reading schematics & timing diagrams
- Working knowledge of Linux internals (irq, cgroups, NUMA, hugepages) and high-performance networking stacks
- Strong foundation in one or more of: quantum information processing, artificial intelligence, robotics, control theory, optimization, signal processing, or experimental physics
- B.S. in CS, EE, Physics, or related discipline (or equivalent practical experience)
Desirable
- M.S./Ph.D. focused on numerical optimization, control systems, photonics, computer science, or quantum information
- Demonstrated experience accelerating numerical Python workflows using Mojo, Jax, PyTorch, or similar
- Experience with sub-nanosecond clock-sync protocols
- Familiarity with FEC and/or QEC (forward error correction / quantum error correction) concepts, stabilizer circuits, fusion-based architectures, or tensor-network simulation
- On-device ML for adaptive calibration (Gaussian processes, RL bandits)
- GPU / CUDA-accelerated numerical kernels (cuBLAS/cuFFT/cuQuantum) and/or GPU-Direct RDMA pipelines
- Contributions to open-source control or scientific-computing projects
What the job involves
- The Control Software & OS Core Team at PsiQuantum works closely alongside engineers and scientists in the electronics, system architecture, and validation teams and is responsible for building the scalable, distributed, fault-tolerant control plane and operating system for utility scale photonic quantum computers
- Our team is responsible for orchestration, scheduling, kernel architecture, co-design, calibration, validation, providing abstractions, systems, and operating software for the immense heterogenous fabric of co-processors, networks, and photonics that are critical to the success of our company’s goal of building the world’s first useful quantum computer
- As a Senior Software Engineer, Calibration & Control you will design and implement the next generation of calibration algorithms, controls, and software that keep our quantum processors in spec 24×7x365
- Architect and implement calibration and adaptive control software in Rust (no-std + async), C++20, and Python targeting x86, GPUs, DPUs, and embedded MCUs
- Design closed-loop optimization algorithms (e.g., Bayesian, stochastic gradient descent, ADAM) that maximize system performance and stability under drift and environmental noise
- Integrate with high-speed fabrics: libfabric, RDMA (RoCEv2/GDR), and FPGA PCIe DMA endpoints
- Build scalable simulation/emulation harnesses (Python, Rust, cuQuantum) to de-risk algorithms before system bring-up
- Implement hooks for observability metrics, traces, SLOs and partner with sibling teams to integrate into our observability infrastructure
- Collaborate daily with physics, validation, firmware, and FPGA teams to co-design HW/SW interfaces and define calibration priorities
- Conduct rigorous code reviews, design reviews, and root-cause analyses; uphold our bar for deterministic, safety-critical code
Application process
- Please include the word "purple" in the cover letter submitted
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, Google and Honeywell, 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 raising hundreds of millions in funding to reach unicorn status.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
16% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Jun 2025
$750m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Jun 2024
$125m
CONVERTIBLE
Total funding: $2.4bn
Company HQ
Palo Alto, CA
Leadership
Jeremy O'Brien
(CEO)Prior to founding PsiQuantum, researched and taught at universities across the world, including Bristol, Stanford, Osaka, Sydney and Queensland.
Mark Thompson
(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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