Principal Software Engineer

Job Description

Job Title: Principal Software Engineer: Location: Los Angeles, California, United States

Collaboration with Product, Design, and Research teams is central to accelerating the path to quantum advantage worldwide.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the architectural evolution of Q-CTRL’s product portfolio, focusing on modular, scalable, and resilient software systems.
• Drive technical strategy and align stakeholders across multiple teams and seniority levels, planning beyond 12 months.
• Set engineering standards across products, including patterns and abstractions spanning teams and domains.
• Oversee and often directly own large cross-team and cross-department technical solutions.
• Mentor engineers on system design and architecture, providing guidance as a dotted-line leader.
• Communicate complex technical trade-offs effectively to executive and senior leadership.
• Split time between coding (~30%) and leadership (~70%), adjusting as company needs require.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with a strong focus on product architecture.
• Proven track record in leading cross-disciplinary architectural transformations, especially in cloud-native and microservices environments.
• Expertise in high-performance data storage, APIs, workflow orchestration, event-driven, and distributed systems.
• Strong programming skills in Python, Rust, and Go.
• Excellent technical documentation and communication skills, including architecture diagrams and design documents.
• Experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code tools.

Preferred:

• Background or interest in quantum computing technologies.
• Experience in high-performance computing and/or machine learning.
• Knowledge of Qiskit or other quantum software frameworks.

Benefits and Compensation:

• Base salary range: $220,000 – $320,000 (depending on experience and skills).
• Eligibility for annual discretionary bonuses, equity, and other forms of compensation.
• Flexible work environment with hybrid options.
• Access to Q-CTRL’s full benefits package.

Other Information:

• Q-CTRL is a global leader in AI-powered quantum control infrastructure software.
• Offices located in Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, and Oxford.
• Company values outcomes over hours, offering flexibility, equity potential, and competitive benefits.
• Candidates with arrest or conviction records are considered in accordance with local fair chance laws.
• Communications will only come from the @q-ctrl.com domain.