Senior Staff Software Engineer - Compiler Tools

As Senior Staff Software Engineer for Compiler and Simulation Tools, you'll serve as the technical lead and primary architect of IonQ's compiler and simulation tooling, partnering closely with the Compiler and QEC teams to drive the strategy and quality of customer-facing tools that quantum developers depend on. You'll own the long-term architecture and maintenance strategy for compilation APIs, SDK integrations, and simulator packages, while setting the engineering bar for how quantum compilation and simulation capabilities are developed, packaged, and delivered.

The Developer Tools team builds the software layer connecting quantum developers to IonQ's quantum computers. In this role, you'll maintain an ecosystem of tooling and shape its direction. You’ll develop an effective open sourcing strategy to make our tools available to the broader quantum ecosystem. You'll translate real-world developer pain points into architectural improvements, define standards for how the team ships production software, and mentor engineers across the team. You'll also serve as a key voice in cross-organizational decisions, protecting the Compiler team's innovation bandwidth while ensuring that their advances reach developers reliably and with exceptional quality.

What You'll Do

You'll lead the architecture and implementation of compiler premium configurations, OpenAPI-based SDK foundations for compilation workflows, and compiler transparency features that give developers deep insight into how their circuits are optimized. You'll own the strategy for packaging and deploying IonQ's noisy simulator as standalone, distributable products for enterprise customers and partner integrations. You'll drive the technical direction for error mitigation production tooling, fault-tolerant quantum computing programming model integrations, and end-to-end testing infrastructure across IonQ's evolving quantum systems.

This role demands both deep technical expertise in quantum compilation and simulation, and the leadership to define how world-class innovations become reliable, well-documented, production-grade software. You'll author formal RFCs and design documents, set architectural precedents, and work across organizational boundaries to align the compiler and simulation roadmap with IonQ's broader strategic goals.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical vision and architecture for compiler and simulation tooling, authoring RFCs and design documents that drive organizational alignment
• Lead the compiler innovation tooling pipeline: taking new features from the Compiler team through testing, documentation, packaging, and release
• Design and maintain compilation toolchains, optimization tools, and circuit transformation libraries at scale
• Define the strategy for packaging and distributing IonQ's noisy simulator as deployable enterprise products (Docker containers, standalone packages, on-premise deployments)
• Architect interfaces for compiler transparency features, giving developers deep visibility into optimization decisions
• Establish standards for noise model configurations and simulator versioning across deployed packages
• Lead the technical direction for error mitigation production tooling and quantum error correction infrastructure
• Drive fault-tolerant quantum computing programming model compiler integrations
• Own comprehensive end-to-end testing archi