Senior Full-Stack Software Engineer, Quantum Architecture, Platform

PsiQuantum • Palo Alto, CA

4d

About The Position

PsiQuantum’s mission is to build the first useful quantum computers—machines capable of delivering the breakthroughs the field has long promised. Since our founding in 2016, our singular focus has been to build and deploy million-qubit, fault-tolerant quantum systems. Quantum computers harness the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that even the most advanced supercomputers or AI systems will never reach. Their impact will span energy, pharmaceuticals, finance, agriculture, transportation, materials, and other foundational industries. Our architecture and approach is based on silicon photonics. By leveraging the advanced semiconductor manufacturing industry—including partners like GlobalFoundries—we use the same high-volume processes that already produce billions of chips for telecom and consumer electronics. Photonics offers natural advantages for scale: photons don’t feel heat, are immune to electromagnetic interference, and integrate with existing cryogenic cooling and standard fiber-optic infrastructure. In 2024, PsiQuantum announced government-funded projects to support the build-out of our first utility-scale quantum computers in Brisbane, Australia, and Chicago, Illinois. These initiatives reflect a growing recognition that quantum computing will be strategically and economically defining—and that now is the time to scale. PsiQuantum also develops the algorithms and software needed to make these systems commercially valuable. Our application, software, and industry teams work directly with leading Fortune 500 companies—including Lockheed Martin, Mercedes-Benz, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Mitsubishi Chemical—to prepare quantum solutions for real-world impact. Quantum computing is not an extension of classical computing. It represents a fundamental shift—and a path to mastering challenges that cannot be solved any other way. The potential is enormous, and we have a clear path to make it real. Come join us. Job Summary: The Quantum Architecture Software Team at PsiQuantum builds the core software and data systems that underpin the study and simulation of quantum computer architectures. Quantum architects research and develop architectures for fault-tolerant photonic quantum computers, in particular methods for entanglement generation and error correction. The Quantum Architecture Software Team builds and supports the internal software platforms that enable these efforts - developing and maintaining simulation frameworks, data systems, and computational tools used to evaluate and explore architectural concepts. We are seeking a Full-Stack Software Engineer to own the design, implementation, and evolution of the backend and web systems that underpin the Quantum Architecture (QA) platform. This role blends deep software engineering expertise in Python, distributed systems, and web architecture, with the ability to design clean interfaces and build robust, composable infrastructure for scientific and computational workflows. You’ll work directly with physicists, software engineers, and researchers to turn computational ideas into sustainable, high-value software systems that drive the simulation and exploration of quantum architectures.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent professional experience.
• 8+ years building backend/platform systems in Python, including leading significant re-architecture efforts.
• Expert-level Python (async, packaging, profiling) with production experience in FastAPI/Flask/Django and typed interface patterns (pydantic/mypy).
• Demonstrated success shipping reproducible pipelines or workflow engines that span HPC/Slurm-style schedulers and cloud infrastructure, including task orchestration and artifact provenance.
• Deep AWS + Terraform experience across multi-environment deployments; comfortable wiring auth layers and managing secrets/service identities.
• Strong database and state-system background (Postgres/MySQL/Mongo + Redis/Valkey), covering schema design, migrations, query tuning, and cache/state orchestration.
• History of designing and maintaining internal APIs/SDKs (REST/gRPC/Python clients) with clear contracts, versioning, and documentation practices.
• Hands-on with CI/CD, static analysis, typed Python tooling, observability stacks (Prometheus/Grafana/OpenTelemetry, profilers) to keep services reliable and diagnosable.

Nice To Haves

• experience building platforms that serve research-heavy or experiment-driven teams, where complex workflows and long-running jobs demand clear interfaces and repeatable execution.

Responsibilities

• Lead the redesign of our core architecture platform backend, defining clear service boundaries and APIs in Python so simulation, data, and UI layers stay decoupled and manageable.
• Build resilient Python-first pipelines that move jobs, configs, and artifacts between on-prem/HPC environments and cloud services, emphasizing reproducibility and debuggability.
• Own database and caching strategy-schema/version design, indexing, migrations, and Redis/Valkey-backed state layers-so long-lived experiments evolve without breaking downstream users.
• Stand up and operate Terraform-managed AWS infrastructure (EC2/EKS/S3/IAM, etc.), integrate authN/Z (OAuth2/OIDC/SSO), and embed logging/metrics/tracing for operational clarity.
• Deliver internal tooling (CLIs, REST/gRPC endpoints, Python SDKs) and documentation that let researchers and engineers launch, observe, and compare simulations without digging through multiple repos.
• Raise the engineering bar: typed Python, thorough testing, CI/CD gates, and mentoring peers on platform design, performance tuning, and modular system composition.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees