Software Engineer -Automation (Hybrid)

Bringing together state-of-the-art cryogenic facilities and an outstanding interdisciplinary team, we are developing quantum processors based on industrial-grade silicon chips, with the potential to radically transform computing power in areas such as materials modelling, medicine, artificial intelligence and more.

Since 2021 our team has been listed every year in the “Top 100 Startups worth watching” in the EE Times in 2021 and 2022, and our technology breakthroughs have been featured in The Telegraph, BBC and the New Statesman. Our chairman is the co-founder of Cadence and Synopsys, the two leading companies in the area of Electronic Design Automation.

We bring together the brightest quantum engineers, integrated circuit (IC) engineers, quantum computing theoreticians and software engineers to create a unique, world-leading team, working together closely to maximise our combined expertise. Our collaborative and interdisciplinary culture is an ideal fit for anyone who thrives in a cutting-edge research and development environment focused on tackling big challenges and contributing to the development of scalable quantum computers based on silicon technology.

Our team of 100+ is based across London, Oxford, San Sebastián and Sydney, with our primary hub in Islington (London). We are looking for a pragmatic and skilled Software Engineer to join the Intelligent Automation (IA) team. This team builds the mission critical software layer that allows our hardware experts and IC engineers to acquire data more efficiently, analyse experiments, and control quantum processors.

In this role, you will join the software stack development team within IA responsible for the systems that power our quantum computing platform. Our software stack spans backend quantum processing unit (QPU) control software, database and queue management systems, and user-facing APIs for job validation and submission. You will contribute to the next generation of deployments, enabling larger qubit counts, more complex architectures, and increasingly sophisticated quantum operations.

Your work will involve prototyping new solutions, iteratively testing and refining them, and preparing components for robust, production-ready systems for deployment. We are looking for an engineer who enjoys solving complex technical problems and building complete software systems. You will contribute to architectural decisions, define interfaces between components, and help shape how our software evolves over time.

This role is suited to someone who thinks beyond individual features or components and is comfortable considering the wider system: reliability, maintainability, performance, and how different parts of a technical stack work together. Please note that this is a hybrid role, with requirements to be on-site at our Islington lab as needed to manage and deploy infrastructure related to the physical lab environment and QPUs.

Responsibilities include:

• Maintaining the prototype software stack, and developing the next generation for future deployments.
• Improving the integration testing across the software stack, including building custom dummy devices and digital twins.

Qualifications:

• Top tier education, minimum 2.1 in Computer Science or closely related discipline from a top university.
• ~4+ years of professional software engineering experience, with strong proficiency in Python.
• Experience designing, developing and maintaining complex software systems, with the ability to make informed design and architectural decisions, and balance considerations such as scalability, maintainability, performance, and reliability.
• Experience working across multiple layers of a software system, with a focus on understanding how components and interfaces fit together, rather than specialising in a single layer of the application.
• Experience profiling, benchmarking, and optimising software, with the ability to identify performance bottlenecks.
• Exposure to C, C++, Rust, and/or GPU programming and GPU optimisation.
• Experienced in git, version control and software best practices.
• Experience with building simulators, digital twins, or other software models of complex systems.
• Experience developing software interfaces for hardware, particularly laboratory instruments, scientific equipment, or other technical devices.

Benefits:

• Be part of a creative, world-leading team.
• Competitive salary and share options scheme.
• Contributory pension scheme.
• Group private medical insurance scheme.
• Life Assurance.
• Cycle-to-work Scheme.

Quantum Motion is committed to providing equal employment opportunity and does not discriminate based on age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, colour, religion, disability status, marital status, pregnancy, gender reassignment or any other protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act 2010.

Quantum Motion is a fast-growing quantum computing scale-up based in London founded by internationally renowned researchers from UCL and Oxford University with over 40 years’ experience in developing qubits and quantum computing architectures.