Quantum Engineer (Ion Trap)

About the role

Conductor Quantum is building quantum superintelligence.

Quantum superintelligence is an AI that uses quantum computers to surpass the capabilities of humanity's greatest minds. We are closer to that inflection point than most people realize. Frontier models are approaching general intelligence, and AI can already generate quantum circuits faster than humans can write them. The question is no longer whether quantum and AI converge; it is who builds the infrastructure to make that convergence reliable, scalable, and useful.

That infrastructure starts with the hardware. The biggest bottleneck in quantum computing today is not qubit count; it is the manual configuration that keeps those qubits from being usable. Our software automates calibration and operations across qubit platforms, turning raw hardware into a stable, ready-to-run platform accessible through a simple chat interface. By solving that bottleneck, we are enabling thousands, and eventually billions, of qubits to operate at scale.

The result is a quantum computer as easy to use as ChatGPT. The first billion users are coming. The majority, we believe, will be AI agents.

Why now

Today, AI generates production code faster and more reliably than most of the world's software engineers. Code is math; math is an instruction set; an instruction set is a quantum circuit. AI is already generating quantum circuits. It just needs reliable hardware to run them on, well-calibrated qubits to use, and a feedback loop tight enough to discover new algorithms autonomously.

The world's most capable AI models are being pointed at B2B SaaS. We are pointing ours at the frontier of science.

Role overview

You will work across the full trapped ion stack: from developing the calibration that makes an ion trap run itself, all the way to hosting it online as a platform that human researchers and AI agents can build on. This is a high-impact, high-ownership role. You will define best practices, influence product strategy, and help lay the foundation for Conductor Quantum's culture and growth.

Key responsibilities

Ion loading and cooling

Develop the routines that carry a system from an empty trap to a cold, ordered ion chain. Drive up loading reliability, Doppler and sideband cooling, and chain lifetime. Cut the time it takes to reach a chain that is ready to run.

Qubit control and characterization

Push single-qubit and Mølmer-Sørensen two-qubit gates to the fidelity our partners need. Calibrate, benchmark, and know whether the remaining error is coming from motional heating, laser noise, or mode structure. Own shuttling fidelity where the system uses it, including the electrode waveforms that move ions without heating them.

Calibration automation

Encode expert tuning into software the platform runs on its own. Close the loop with the software and machine learning teams so calibration recovers without a physicist in the room.