Software Engineer, System Orchestration IonQ in Oxford

About IonQ: IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ) is the world’s leading quantum platform and merchant supplier – delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers, the IonQ Tempo, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners including Amazon Web Services and AstraZeneca achieve 20x performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance. Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, IonQ has operations in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Our quantum computing services are available through all major cloud providers, while we also meet the needs of networking and sensing customers across land, sea, air, and space. IonQ is making quantum platforms more accessible and impactful than ever before.

Location: Oxford, UK Office commitment: Hybrid

The Role: We are looking for an enthusiastic Software Engineer to join our System Orchestration team in System Software at Oxford Ionics. In this role, you will be responsible for building the software that keeps our systems calibrated, decides what they do next and keeps the record of what they did, contributing to the team’s mission of keeping our quantum computers running useful work around the clock.

The trapped-ion quantum computers we are building will control 10,000 ions within two years, and all of that has to be kept in tune – settings that drift over minutes, hours and days. Without it a computer does not stop; it quietly starts producing invalid output. Calibration routines, scientists’ experiments and customer workloads all compete for physical hardware, and our team builds the control plane that arbitrates that: it schedules and prioritises programs, hands exclusive access to one at a time and takes it back cooperatively, streams results while a program is still running, and keeps the record of everything that ran. It runs on every quantum computer in our fleet. Its job is to keep that machine busy and productive: running quantum programs rather than waiting in between, and running them in spec – on a machine still hitting the fidelity it is meant to hit.

The ambition is for that to run without a person in the loop: machines that assess their own readiness, call for the calibrations they need, and keep a full history of how they were tuned. You’d work closely with the runtime team who own real-time control, the systems teams who build and maintain our quantum computers, and the operators and scientists who run them. You will own features end to end, from the API through to the rollout onto real machines. You’ll play an important part in shaping the services that support our work in building the world’s most advanced quantum systems. Previous exposure to quantum systems is not required.

Responsibilities: In this position, you will work on the services that schedule work onto our quantum computers and keep the record of it, supporting the effective delivery of a control plane the whole fleet depends on. You’ll have the opportunity to own real pieces of that system end to end, contributing directly to the success of the System Software function.

• Build and extend the services that schedule work on our systems and keep the record of it.
• Build the mechanisms that decide when a system needs re-tuning, and get those calibrations run.
• Own what we persist: the data model, its migrations, and the code that reads and writes it.
• Produce the tests and harnesses that let our code be exercised against real hardware and against simulators.
• Work with the systems teams to roll releases out across the fleet and support them once they are running.
• Improve the observability of the code you ship.
• Take part in code review, and improve the APIs our internal users depend on.

Requirements: To be successful, you will need solid programming skills, an interest in the systems that keep long-running machines working, and either experience of a systems programming language or the appetite to learn one. We’re looking for someone who can work comfortably in a Linux environment, cares about what happens to data when a service crashes or a migration goes wrong, and can contribute effectively within a fast moving, highly technical team.

You’d be a great fit with:

• Strong programming skills in one or more mainstream programming languages.
• Experience with a systems programming language. Our System Orchestration layer is written in Rust, so either some Rust experience or the appetite to learn it.
• Comfort with relational databases and SQL; we use PostgreSQL.
• Some exposure to networked services and APIs, such as gRPC or REST.
• Exposure to schedulers, job queues or workflow engines – Celery, Airflow, Temporal, Slurm or similar.
• Comfort working on Linux, and debugging a service that is already running.
• Good communication skills both within software and across disciplines.
• A habit of producing appropriate tests and taking part in code review.

Additional useful experience would include async programming, containers and Kubernetes, closed-loop systems that act on measured state, and scientific computing or research facilities.

Benefits: Be part of a team that’s shaping the future of quantum. We offer more than just a role, you’ll join a world class community of scientists, engineers and innovators working to unlock the full potential of quantum computing. We offer a range of benefits, including opportunities to further your career alongside industry leaders, a competitive salary with IonQ stock options, an annual performance bonus, generous annual leave, flexible hybrid working, private medical and dental insurance for you and your family, and much more.

Join us and be part of the future of quantum computing. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

At IonQ, we believe in fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all while striving to identify and eliminate barriers. We empower employees to thrive by fostering a culture of autonomy, productivity, and respect. We are dedicated to creating an environment where individuals can feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued. We are committed to equity and justice. We welcome different voices and viewpoints and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by law. We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer.