Senior Staff Software Engineer - Application Engineering

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.  

We are looking for a Senior Staff Software Engineer for Application Engineering. As a Sr Software Engineer on the Applications Engineer team, you’ll be part of a cross-functional team whose mission is to deliver real-world applications and value from the leap forward in computing enabled by quantum technology. 

We don't just build the world's best quantum computers - we apply cutting edge quantum computing tools to real world problems. Until now, our team of Applications Scientists have been building prototypes, working closely with our customers. Our new department, Applications Engineering, will ultimately help transform proven quantum computing use-cases pioneered by our scientists into production applications, making those innovations available to more people and businesses by packaging and deploying these tools as SaaS applications.

But first, we must mature existing proof-of-concept quantum code into production grade applications. As a hands-on team lead for a new engineering team, you will work on enhancing developer experience (DevEx) by applying best practices to research-grade code. You will also set up CI / CD pipelines, software packing tools, and pre/post flight tests for new algorithms as they go into deployment. Where possible you will also be in charge of optimizing and parallelizing traditional algorithms, to reduce pre-processing and post-processing workloads. You will spearhead a new team taking newly invented quantum applications, and turning them into well defined modules of reliable SaaS applications. Think of it as being a forward-deployed engineer for quantum computing applications; the strongest candidates will be generalists with wide-ranging interests. 

This team will work closely with Developer Tools, Infrastructure, and Product teams to solve problems by choosing the right technologies, and standardizing and automating those solutions. The right engineer will be comfortable working on refining chemistry simplification via Quantum Computing tool one quarter, and turning a novel quantum topology solver into a service the next - and love pair programming with scientists. They’ll bring the quantum expertise; you bring the deep and broad experience in classical programming.

• →Partner with Application scientists to help deliver cutting-edge solutions for customers
• →Elevate Applications code quality generally through architectural review, code review, standards, and best practices
• →Improve Applications pace of delivery by creating CI / CD pipelines and other packaging automation, as well as test infrastructure and coverage
• →Help productize computing code, especially improving data processing in pre-quantum and post-quantum processing steps
• →Work closely with peers in Applications, Developer Tools, and Product teams to share best practices and feedback on internal tools
• →Reporting to the Director of Application Engineering, help hire and mentor developers on the team

• 12+ years of experience as a backend or full-stack developer, preferably in Python or Golang
• 5+ years of experience in setting up and maintaining CI / CD pipelines, in Github Actions, Jenkins, or similar tools
• 5+ years of experience in C/C++ or Rust
• 3+ years of experience in Docker, k8s, or similar containerization technologies
• A track record of shipping containerized applications that solve real business problems
• Previous work in scientific computing, quantum computing, or a related field
• Daily usage of augmented coding tools like Claude or Gemini 

• 5+ years of experience in scientific computing, especially with data analysis using numpy, pandas, or similar
• Experience in HPC or performance optimization
• Experience in converting traditional algorithms into CUDA, OpenMP workflows, or similar parallelization experience
• Experience with workflow orchestration engines like Airflow, Dagster, or Temporal

If you are interested in being a part of our team and mission, we encourage you to apply!