Senior Staff Scientist - Quantum AI

The IonQ Applications team is seeking a pioneering Senior Staff Scientist who’s committed to delivering the world’s best quantum AI solutions on the world’s best quantum computers to solve the world’s most complex and impactful problems for customers around the world. As an AI thought leader and expert doer, you will span wide and dig deep to identify, champion and deliver hybrid applications where IonQ trapped-ion quantum computers can unlock new value.

As a role model for a team of PhD application scientists, you will help discover new algorithms, develop core IP, develop computational resource models, and optimize hybrid codes from quantum circuit to cloud platform. You will also work closely with product, marketing, sales, operations, and external customers/partners to brainstorm new ideas, define multi-year Quantum AI roadmaps, and represent IonQ at high-visibility conferences (often all in a single day)!

Responsibilities:

• Lead hands-on development of state-of-the-art hybrid AI applications optimized for CPU, GPU and IonQ trapped-ion QPU.
• Be an intrapreneur within the company to shape, champion and deliver on a multi-year quantum AI roadmap. Influence hardware/firmware/software co-design.
• Collaborate across compiler, system, cloud and partner teams to integrate quantum algorithms within larger hybrid software platforms and workflows.
• Be a go-to technical leader and decision-maker for a team of talented PhD scientists
• Grow IonQ’s global footprint by identifying problems of business interest to new clients in global markets and fostering customer relationships.
• While this role is remote-friendly and highly flexible, candidates must be able to travel to global customer sites and attend virtual meetings during non-core hours—potential for onsite co-location at customer sites during key engagements.

You’d be a good fit with:

• PhD in Computer Science, Math, Physics, Electrical Engineering in relevant field or similar level of professional experience
• 10+ years of industry experience in relevant domain
• Update-to-date, hands-on programming skills involving training and developing enterprise-scale AI models. Highly adept at using tools of the trade such as (not limited to) git, slurm, Python, Torch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, scripting, visualization, profiling, parallel programming, etc.
• Active portfolio of high-impact scientific papers in quantum computing, AI or ML.

You’d be a great fit with:

• Hands-on experience developing and optimizing quantum algorithms using quantum SDKs such as Qiskit (preferred), CUDA-Q, Cirq, Q#, Penny Lane and Torch Quantum. Experience developing circuits for NISQ hardware is a plus.
• Track record of scaling up software from research-grade artifacts (Matlab, Julia, R, Jupyter Notebook) to beta-customer to full release.
• Industrial domain expertise in a field such as NLP, operations research, logistics, manufacturing, engineering simulations, etc.
• Success as an originator and team leader for cross-disciplinary projects that apply LLM, Generative AI or other foundational AI models toward impactful business problems.

Location: This position can work onsite or hybrid from one of our offices (College Park, MD, Bothell, WA) or fully remote in the US or Switzerland (for eligible European candidates).

The approximate base salary range for this position is $162,920 - $213,304 USD.