Staff Software Engineer (SDK), Developer Tools

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.  

As a Staff Software Engineer (SDK) on the Developer Tools team, you will own the programming paradigms, interfaces, and developer experience that IonQ exposes to the world through its quantum SDKs. Your work will define how researchers, enterprises, and the broader open-source community write, optimize, and run quantum programs on IonQ hardware. You will lead the productization and open-sourcing of IonQ's quantum developer tools, setting the standard for usability, documentation, and community engagement across our public-facing SDK ecosystem.

This is a highly visible role at the boundary between IonQ's internal platform and the external developer community. You will set high-level technical standards for SDK architecture, mentor senior engineers and scientists, and provide deep expertise to solve the most challenging problems in quantum programming models, API design, and cross-platform integration. You will work across organizational boundaries, Applications, Compiler, and Engineering, to ensure that IonQ's SDKs are powerful, intuitive, and aligned with cutting-edge quantum research.

Your impact will be measured by the quality and adoption of IonQ's public SDK offerings, the health of our open-source communities, and the successful delivery of cross-functional projects that make quantum computing more accessible to every developer.

• →Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or a related field, or equivalent training, fellowship, or work experience.
• →10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a significant portion spent in a technical leadership or architectural role.
• →7+ years of experience designing, developing, and maintaining public-facing SDKs or developer libraries with a strong emphasis on API design and developer experience.
• →Deep expertise in Python and experience designing large-scale, developer-facing software systems.
• →Demonstrated experience managing or contributing to open-source projects with external contributors, including release management, community engagement, and contribution governance.
• →Proven track record of driving complex, cross-functional engineering projects from concept to production delivery.
• →A history of mentorship and elevating the technical capabilities of a multi-level engineering team.
• →Familiarity with Agentic AI coding tools and techniques, and experience integrating them into modern software development workflows.
• →Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with a track record of authoring impactful technical documentation, specifications, and developer guides.

• An advanced degree (PhD or Master's) in Physics, Computer Science, or a related field with a focus on quantum computing or programming language design.
• Expert-level understanding of quantum computing principles, quantum circuits, optimization techniques, and compiler fundamentals.
• Deep expertise in system-level programming (C++, Rust) for high-performance computing or hardware interaction.
• Significant contributions to open-source software in the quantum computing ecosystem (e.g., Qiskit, Pennylane, Cirq).
• Experience with quantum computing technologies such as error mitigation, quantum error correction, quantum compilers, and circuit optimization.
• Direct experience in programming language or API design, particularly around domain-specific abstractions for scientific or technical audiences.
• A demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across organizational boundaries and secure buy-in for strategic initiatives

The SDK is the front door to IonQ's quantum computers. Your architectural decisions will shape how thousands of developers, from academic researchers to Fortune 500 engineering teams, experience quantum computing for the first time and build on it over time. By leading the open-sourcing and productization of IonQ's developer tools, you will directly accelerate the global adoption of quantum computing and help build the community that sustains it. This role offers the rare opportunity to combine deep technical leadership with high-visibility community impact, defining not just how IonQ's tools work, but how the world writes quantum software.

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