Senior Rust Software Engineer, IonQ

• Travel: Up to 5%, domestic or international
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, with 6+ years of professional software engineering experience (with a proven track record in embedded or hardware-adjacent environments)
• To comply with the US export control laws, Vector Atomic employees must be U.S. citizens (born or naturalized), lawful U.S. permanent residents (i.e. green card holders), and certain categories of refugees, and asylees
• Must be fully comfortable working hands-on in a laboratory environment alongside physical hardware and complex test setups
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to bridge technical gaps between hardware engineers, software teams, and physicists

Desirable

• Location: This role is based onsite at our office in Pleasanton, CA
• Vector Atomic is building next-generation quantum devices designed for real-world applications, including GPS-free navigation, high-precision timing, geophysical exploration, and telecommunications
• As a Senior Rust Software Engineer, you will serve as a technical leader within a rapidly growing, collaborative team of over 50 professionals delivering practical, transformational quantum technologies
• In this high-impact role, you will architect and write production-quality Rust code, driving the software strategy for our advanced quantum instruments
• You will collaborate deeply across disciplines with physicists, electronics engineers, and firmware engineers, taking ownership of system controllers, data acquisition pipelines, and critical control algorithms on ARM SoCs from concept to deployment
• Technical Leadership & Architecture: Lead the design and development of reliable, high-performance, production-quality software architectures in Rust
• System Control & Drivers: Architect and verify system controllers on ARM SoCs, designing robust user-space drivers for complex peripherals (including mixed-signal devices) and low-latency data acquisition pipelines
• Advanced Algorithm Implementation: Implement and optimize critical control loops and precision algorithms essential to the stability and operation of quantum sensing instruments
• Hardware Integration & Bring-up: Partner closely with hardware teams to lead board testing, hardware bring-up, and the implementation of fault-tolerant error-handling systems
• Quantum Software Infrastructure: Oversee the development and scaling of core software libraries used for the control and automation of next-generation quantum systems
• Mentorship & Process Improvement: Champion continuous improvement within the development process—leading technical code reviews, project retrospectives, and mentoring junior engineers