Senior Systems and Network Engineer

IonQ•College Park, MD

3d•$126,887 - $166,127•Hybrid

About The Position

IonQ is building quantum computers and the infrastructure supporting this work is crucial. A misconfigured VLAN or a failed provisioning job can halt a calibration run or delay a system build. IonQ is seeking a Senior Systems and Network Engineer to manage the classical infrastructure layer that directly supports quantum hardware builds and operations at their College Park site. This involves provisioning servers and system heads that control quantum hardware, building and maintaining the lab and datacenter networking these systems operate on, and integrating cameras, laser control systems, and other specialized scientific hardware essential for a quantum system. This role is lab-grade systems and network engineering, more akin to research computing at a national facility than corporate IT. The engineer will work with physical hardware, cabling, and real-world failure modes, and will focus on automating infrastructure to support scaling efforts.

Requirements

6+ years of experience in systems, network, or infrastructure engineering with hands-on server provisioning experience.
Hands-on experience configuring and troubleshooting switches, firewalls, routers, and on-prem servers in a production environment.
Direct experience configuring VLANs and managed-switch environments, including self-sufficient network problem diagnosis and resolution.
Experience building or rebuilding a provisioning workflow using infrastructure-as-code or automation tooling (Ansible, Salt, Kickstart, Foreman, Cobbler, Packer, or equivalent).
Experience integrating non-standard or custom hardware into a compute environment (e.g., scientific instruments, specialist peripherals, devices with custom drivers).
Working knowledge of IPMI/BMC and out-of-band server management.
Strong scripting ability in Python, Go, or an equivalent language.
Comfort operating in an environment where infrastructure failure directly impacts work and where new hardware generation playbooks are still being developed.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a company running significant on-prem compute infrastructure at scale (bare-metal cloud, colocation, high-density compute).
Experience with Kubernetes or container orchestration in a bare-metal or hybrid environment.
Experience with configuration drift detection and enforcement, and ability to describe idempotency verification in a provisioning pipeline.
Familiarity with cloud networking (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid on-prem/cloud environments.
Experience in a research, national lab, or scientific compute environment.
Prior exposure to quantum computing or another deep-tech hardware domain.

Responsibilities

Provision Linux servers and system heads for quantum hardware builds, including PXE boot, OS installation, and automated configuration.
Build and maintain infrastructure-as-code for server and network provisioning (Ansible, Kickstart, Foreman, Packer, Terraform, or equivalent) to ensure systems are reproducible.
Design, configure, and troubleshoot networking for lab and datacenter environments, including VLANs, managed switches, firewalls, and structured cabling.
Integrate non-standard scientific and lab hardware into the compute environment, such as cameras, laser control systems, and custom device drivers.
Utilize IPMI/BMC and other out-of-band tooling to manage a growing fleet of servers without requiring physical intervention for every failure.
Define and document handoff criteria for systems ready for experimental teams.
Diagnose and resolve infrastructure issues that are actively blocking hardware builds or experimental runs, prioritizing urgency accordingly.
Partner with software, DevOps, and hardware engineering teams to understand the needs of new systems before they arrive.
Write runbooks and documentation to ensure provisioning knowledge is stored in a repository, not solely with one individual.