Senior Staff Technical Program Manager - Compute Platform

IonQ•Boulder, CO

6d•$180,000 - $270,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Compute Platform team is responsible for transforming quantum capability into quantum utility by developing the APIs, cloud infrastructure, developer tools, and application layer that connect IonQ's Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) to users. This role is crucial for making powerful hardware accessible and functional. IonQ is seeking a Senior Staff Technical Program Manager to lead cross-functional programs within the application platform, developer tooling, and compiler stack. The position reports directly to the VP of the department and involves program-level decision-making authority and ownership. The role will collaborate with four engineering teams, comprising approximately forty engineers, and will manage multiple concurrent programs in an environment of high ambiguity, as the challenges of commercializing quantum computers are largely uncharted. This is a high-visibility position with responsibility for some of the company's most critical initiatives, requiring regular interaction with senior technical leadership and key partners.

Requirements

8+ years of experience managing technical programs and delivering against aggressive timelines.
Proven track record of leading technical teams through genuine ambiguity, not just executing predefined plans.
Experience in developer tools, SDKs, compilers, or adjacent platform software.
A consistent habit of transforming diffuse problems into specific, minimal, and assignable tasks.
Technical fluency to engage directly with engineering leads on scoping and tradeoffs, with comfort in reading and reasoning about code.
Willingness to re-baseline against reality rather than defend outdated dates, with the judgment to distinguish motivating targets from fictional ones.
Experience building or automating the reconciliation between planning documents and ticket systems, treating drift as a defect.
Fluency in shifting between fast-cycle delivery and longer-horizon program building as required by the situation.
Proficiency in using AI as a core part of work, including experience building agent-driven workflows for program management.
Experience in customer-facing technical roles.
Highly effective written and verbal communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience establishing program tracking and reporting infrastructure from scratch, including designing team operating cadences and consulting affected individuals before making changes.
Customer-facing technical experience.
Capacity and staffing modeling from conflicting inputs, with the discipline to clearly label unknowns.
Demonstrated ability to earn the trust of technical stakeholders through consistency and results.
Genuine enthusiasm for reading and writing PRDs and ERDs.
Working knowledge of quantum computing (though no prior quantum background is required).

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end delivery of IonQ's application platform, developer tools, and compiler roadmap, spanning numerous cross-functional development threads.
Partner with engineering leadership to translate technical vision into incremental, shippable milestones, proactively identifying and mitigating risks before they impact the schedule.
Develop and maintain timelines, tracking, and reporting mechanisms that are actively used by teams, with success measured by adoption.
Ensure the accuracy and consistency of systems of record (PRDs, trackers, Jira) to prevent programs from operating without clear direction.
Make invisible work visible by rigorously tracking on-call burden, sustaining load, and technical debt, similar to feature delivery.
Engage deeply with long-pole problems and collaborate with teams to overcome obstacles when programs stall.
Surface unresolved risks early, even without a complete solution or full stakeholder alignment.
Manage dependencies across internal and external teams, both technical and non-technical.
Write and present concise, data-driven status updates to senior leadership.
Assist in transforming promising off-roadmap engineer ideas into formal proposals for potential prioritization.