58 jobs for “Research Associate In Optimal Quantum”
Hands-on role supporting the optical manufacturing team building and upgrading quantum computer systems. Day to day involves optical, mechanical and electrical assembly, keeping the lab and workshop tidy and safe, and producing and maintaining technical documentation alongside engineers, scientists and senior technicians.
Validates and optimises trapped-ion quantum computers, prototyping coherent control and cooling schemes, calibrating and benchmarking qubit gates, and validating emerging trap technologies with integrated electronics and photonics. Involves coding and debugging experiments in Python or Rust and documenting findings within a fast-moving UK science team.
Python · Rust
Lead experimental programs to characterize, calibrate and optimize two-qubit gates on tunable-coupler superconducting processors, isolating error sources such as leakage, crosstalk and decoherence. Develop pulse shaping, dynamical decoupling and automated calibration methods that scale across hundreds of qubit pairs, feeding findings back into device design and fabrication.
QuTiP · Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services
Universal Quantum · 51–200 people · Series A
Lead multidisciplinary systems engineering across electronic, mechanical, cryogenic, vacuum, optical, software and control domains, owning system-level rigour from concept to customer deployment. Define the systems engineering strategy, lifecycle, standards and toolset including requirements management, MBSE, modelling and configuration control, while chairing design, readiness, test and acceptance reviews. Build and mentor engineering teams across UK and international locations, maintaining system-level plans, dependencies and technical risks to meet programme objectives.
Quera Computing
Design, build and characterise neutral-atom quantum computing hardware, including constructing a next-generation quantum computer at the Harwell campus. The role involves calibrating and improving QPU operation, investigating noise and decoherence, analysing experimental data, and collaborating with physicists, engineers and academic partners.
Neutral Atom Platform · Trapped Ion System · Gate-Based Quantum Computers +1
PsiQuantum · 501–1000 people · Late stage
Laboratory-based R&D role designing and running precise, repeatable measurements of optical fibre properties such as loss, modal content, dispersion and polarisation, and interpreting how they affect system performance. Combines experimental characterisation, optical modelling and exploratory subsystem demonstrations, working with optical-interface and mechanical-design specialists plus external research partners.
FDTD
PsiQuantum · 501–1000 people · Late stage
Translate computational tasks into abstract quantum-algorithm specifications, analyse asymptotic performance, and define problem instances beyond classical reach. Work with the Compilation team on explicit implementations and resource estimates, and lead research programs with industrial and academic partners across fault-tolerant photonic quantum computing.
Python · C++
Infleqtion · 51–200 people · Public
Builds and maintains CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration and infrastructure-as-code for integrated software, firmware and gateware, including hardware-in-the-loop testing rigs. Also owns lab system management, network and server administration, backup and recovery planning, and software security procedures for production systems. Split between Kidlington and the National Quantum Computing Centre at Harwell, with up to two days remote.
Docker · Kubernetes
UCL
Theoretical PhD project exploring how terahertz photons can control quantum matter, from Landau polaritons in high magnetic fields to topological qubits. Combines quantum optics, condensed-matter theory and numerical modelling of driven open quantum systems, with close links to experimentally achievable THz cavities.
Anonymous
Own the full electronics development lifecycle for photonic computing hardware, from analogue and mixed-signal circuit design through schematic capture, PCB layout, prototyping and lab verification. Work alongside physicists, optical engineers and embedded software developers in a collaborative R&D team, testing with oscilloscopes and spectrum analysers and supporting integration and EMC work.
ADC · DAC · Oscilloscopes +1
Anonymous
Develops FPGA-based digital control hardware for photonic quantum computing systems, owning architecture, RTL design, simulation, synthesis, timing closure and hardware bring-up. Works in a multidisciplinary R&D team with electronics engineers, physicists and software developers on high-speed, low-latency control and signal processing using ADCs, DACs and high-speed interfaces.
Xilinx Vivado · Intel Quartus · ADC +2
University of Birmingham
A theoretical physics PhD project studying out-of-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics and how thermodynamics emerges from it. The work combines analytical and numerical methods from quantum many-body physics, quantum information, quantum integrability and quantum many-body chaos, supervised by Dr Bruno Bertini.
University of Exeter
A computational PhD project unifying open quantum spin dynamics simulations with deep-learning protein generation to build an in silico directed evolution pipeline. The candidate will design biological qubits that transduce spin-dependent events into functional effector signals, using tools such as ColabDesign, ProteinMPNN, molecular dynamics and DFT, with co-supervision from NPL and collaboration with Orion Life.
ColabDesign · ProteinMPNN · Stochastic Liouville Solvers
Lead the global deployment, integration and commissioning of on-premise quantum computing systems, building and scaling a Field Engineering organisation. Own site readiness, installation, acceptance and lifecycle support for superconducting processors, dilution refrigerators and RF/microwave hardware, acting as senior technical escalation point and travelling globally around 30-40%.
Superconducting Quantum Processors · Dilution Refrigerators · RF/Microwave Hardware +1
Oxford Ionics · 51–200 people · Series B
Hands-on staff engineering role building the control plane that schedules and prioritises quantum programs, arbitrates exclusive hardware access, streams results and records everything that ran across a fleet of trapped-ion quantum computers. Work spans Rust services, PostgreSQL persistence, crash recovery and scheduling frameworks, with deep diagnosis of live-system failures.
Rust · gRPC · REST +6
