Scientific Software Engineer — Emulation & Application

Summary

QuEra Computing Inc. is building the world's most scalable quantum computers using neutral-atom technology. Based in Boston and founded by the pioneers of neutral-atom quantum platforms at Harvard and MIT, QuEra is developing quantum computers that push the boundaries of what is computationally possible — from materials science and drug discovery to machine learning.

QuEra is seeking a Scientific Software Engineer to develop and maintain our in-house quantum hardware emulator and support application research building on top of and utilizing the emulation toolchain. In this role, you will implement high-performance quantum circuit simulation backends, build tooling that enables researchers to rapidly prototype and validate quantum algorithms, and contribute to the software infrastructure that bridges our hardware capabilities with real-world applications.

This role sits at the intersection of scientific computing and quantum application development. You will help shape the emulation layer that underpins algorithm design, hardware benchmarking, and customer-facing demonstrations — providing researchers, both internal and external, a faithful, fast model of QuEra’s quantum processors.

You will work closely with application scientists, experimental scientists, and the compiler team, collaborating on topics from noise modeling and Hamiltonian simulation to algorithm co-design for neutral-atom architectures.

Responsibilities

• Develop, test, and optimize core components of QuEra's in-house quantum hardware emulator, including state-vector, tensor-network, and pulse-level simulation backends.
• Write performance-critical code in Rust, C++, and/or CUDA to run large-scale simulations on GPU clusters and HPC infrastructure.
• Collaborate with application researchers to prototype, validate, and refine quantum algorithms targeting near-term and future neutral-atom hardware.
• Support noise modeling and hardware-faithful emulation by working with the hardware and calibration teams to incorporate realistic device parameters into the emulators.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and documentation to maintain code quality and reproducibility across the emulation stack.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Physics, Computer Science, or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of computational quantum many-body physics, with experience in one or more of: tensor networks, ZX calculus, Pauli propagation, or stabilizer simulation.
• Proficiency in at least one of: Julia, Rust, C++, or CUDA, with demonstrated ability to write well-structured, testable scientific software.
• Strong practical experience of the full software development lifecycle, including version control, code review, testing, CI/CD, and documentation.
• Familiarity with high-performance computing concepts: MPI/OpenMP parallelism, GPU programming, memory hierarchy optimization.
• Strong problem-solving skills and comfort working at the intersection of physics and software engineering.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience collaborating with algorithmic research or quantum information theory groups, with the ability to translate research insights into software requirements and implementations.
• Practical hands-on exposure to tensor-network libraries (ITensor, TensorNetwork, QUIMB, etc.) or quantum many-body simulation tools.
• Experience with GPU-accelerated numerical computing (CUDA, cuQuantum, ROCm, or similar).
• Familiarity with profiling and benchmarking tools (perf, NVIDIA Nsight, VTune, or equivalent).
• Strong track record of contributions to open-source scientific or quantum computing projects.
• Experience with containerized workflows (Docker/Singularity) and job schedulers (Slurm) in HPC environments.
• Familiarity with neutral-atom quantum computing architectures and digital quantum simulation.

The approximate base salary range for this position is $120.000.00 - $202,000.00.

We consistently monitor external market data and update base salary ranges accordingly.  We determine base compensation decisions on several factors, including as geographic placement, role-specific knowledge, skills, and/or experience.  In addition to our base salary offerings, we also provide equity grants for all new hires.

QuEra is committed to cultivating a diverse work environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We highly value diversity in our current and future employees and do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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