Head of Control Systems

At OQC, our custom Control Systems bridge the gap between classical and cutting-edge Quantum computing hardware. Adding a Head of Control Systems to lead our team of six highly skilled engineers will ensure the development of our technology from novel prototypes through to deployment, and the delivery of our real-world quantum computing solutions will help us lead the Quantum revolution.

You’re already a proven Engineering leader with a background in hardware - particularly in FPGA - and embedded software, something you’ve delivered across the full product development lifecycle. Balancing being an active contributor to your own engineering work with your leadership and project management expertise comes naturally to you: driving both teams and projects to success. Equally, you’re comfortable working across a company - and beyond - including working alongside supply chain teams, our Innovation Transfer and Compiler teams as well as external suppliers.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Defining and monitoring progress against the technical and team's roadmap; ensuring overall progress understood, as well as helping build the roadmap for the next two years of milestones and strategy.
• Monitoring the progress of the team’s work towards completion of work packages, helping overcome blocks and challenges that could delay delivery and impact technical deliverables.
• Leading complex research projects - including headline projects from the company roadmap - across the full development lifecycle from prototypes through to commercial production and deployment.
• Providing clear recommendations for resource allocation and prioritisation, including hiring needs and budgetary plans for review and sign-off.
• Preparing reports and presenting updates to executives and other senior leadership on the progress and developments within control systems projects.
• Ensuring we provide round-the-clock support for our deployed devices in Japan, the UK, and Spain - with more to come.
• Evaluating potential collaborations with external partners - such as suppliers, government, commercial partners’ R&D teams etc. - and looking at and agreeing budgets and workloads.
• Providing full line-management for the team of six engineers from career development to pay, and from performance management to technical guidance.

Coming from a commercial or academic research setting; you’ll have solid experience of performing FPGA design and verification work on a range of projects as well as being able to demonstrate experience of co-designing software and hardware. The projects you’ve managed will have given you insight into how and when to use different project management frameworks - from Agile to scrum - in a lean production environment and a keen appreciation for QA in the electronics and software field. And of course, as a manager, you'll have that proven passion for managing, mentoring, and leadership. Supporting and developing our team is key to who we are - that’ll be in your hands.

As an engineer, we know you’ll want to know about our tech stack - and the experience you’ll need there - it includes: FPGA, Verilog, C/C++, RF engineering. If you think you got what it takes to drive the development of our control systems, enable the seamless integration of classical and quantum computing, and to lead a team creating the next big revolution in technology, then we’re keen to hear from you - and all about you.

Finally, Research has shown that women are less likely than men to apply for this role if they do not have solid experience in 100% of all these areas. Please know that this list is indicative and that we would still love to hear from you even if you feel you only are a 75% match. Skills can be learnt, diversity cannot. At OQC, we see a brighter future for all, enabled by quantum.