Senior Software Engineer, Back-end

About us

Founded in 2017, Q-CTRL has grown to become the global leader in quantum. We’re using control to solve the hardest problems facing quantum technology, improving hardware performance and accelerating pathways to useful quantum computers and other technologies. As a product-led company, we bring together diverse teams such as product, design, engineering and research to help achieve our mission of making quantum technology useful. Join us to help shape the quantum future.

As one of the fastest growing companies in the quantum sector, we’ve had a number of key milestones:

- In November 2023, we announced an industry-first partnership with IBM Quantum Services, natively integrating our performance management software with all IBM quantum computers. Building off of this relationship, in September 2024 we started offering two services via IBM’s new Qiskit Functions Catalog as an inaugural partner.

- Designed and moved our Global HQ offices and lab space into the first purpose-built (and award winning) commercial and research facility for a quantum technology company in Australia.

- Continued to deliver real world outcomes across the quantum sectors, with our work with Australian Defence on software-ruggedized quantum sensing for navigation without GPS, as featured in the New York Times.

- In October 2024, we announced our record breaking expansion of our Series B funding round to USD $113M, with $59M USD of new capital.

- Grew our global presence to include Los Angeles, Berlin, and Oxford - as well as the recently announced office in San Francisco.

From educating the workforce on how quantum computing works, to building the next generation of quantum sensors, to delivering massive performance gains for end-users, it all starts with hiring the right talent. If you want to help us build the Quantum future, read on.

About the role

As a back-end Software Engineer in the Black Opal team you will be responsible for creating and maintaining the services supporting Black Opal as well as architecting integrations with education partners. This role plays a key part in the evolution of our ever growing customer base and partner integrations. As a main contributor to our code base, this role requires strong coding skills, team collaboration and attention to detail.

Black Opal is our market leading quantum education platform helping build a global quantum ready workforce. The Black Opal team is a full stack product team and collaborates frequently with all teams in Q-CTRL Engineering as well as with colleagues from Design and Product.

What you'll be doing:

• Make technical decisions and deliver technical solutions, with consideration for performance, scalability and extensibility.
• Leading the development, testing and documenting Q-CTRL's API's (will be using Python and Django most of the time). 
• Work on new product features expressed as scenarios using Gherkin Syntax (Given, When, Then) with Product and Design colleagues.
• Review and address code and comments submitted by the team via pull requests.
• Stay up-to-date with current best-practices in your field with a willingness to share knowledge freely.

Ideally you'll have:

• 3+ years of software development experience as a Software engineer.
• Experience applying technical standards, ensuring that solutions are scalable, maintainable, and meet business objectives while preventing technical debt.
• Hands-on experience with any web API development (GraphQL, RESTful, etc).
• Hands on Python experience.
• Experience with event driven architecture and messaging frameworks (RabbitMQ etc).
• Our core values resonate with you (to be real, trusted, just and revered) and you have a willingness to adapt, collaborate and help others.
• We’re a successful start-up company which means we move quickly, but with thought and empathy. Understanding how to operate within these parameters is extremely important.
• You have a bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent practical experience.

It would be fantastic if you have these skills/experience but not essential:

• Experience with Python Web Frameworks such as Django, Flask or FastAPI.
• Experience working with cloud based architectures
• Knowledge on OIDC and OAuth2.
• Experience working in a start-up or scale-up environment.

Why Q-CTRL?

Flexibility: We embrace workplace flexibility so you worry more about your impact vs a rigid work schedule.

Attractive salary: You’ll get to have the start-up impact without the start-up wages.

Equity: We want people to have a sense of ownership in what they do and offer the potential for equity share and annual bonuses.

Cash bonus: We recognize exceptional performance and impact by offering annual discretionary cash bonuses.

Resources: We are well funded by the world’s best technology investors, letting us chase our ambitions with minimal constraints.

Parental support: We offer paid parental leave to support you and your loved ones.

Diversity:  We’re an equal opportunity employer and actively support initiatives like the ‘Global Women in Quantum’ program to help expand the quantum workforce.

Unique culture: You’ll be surrounded by some of the world’s leading physicists, engineers, product, marketing and design people (to name a few!) with a strong desire to learn and transfer knowledge.

Meaningful values: You’ll work with an incredibly supportive team who work consistently to deliver our core values to be real, be trusted, be just and to be revered. 

Personal development: We provide you with a personal development and wellness budget. 

Make a dent: Last but not least you’ll have the unique opportunity to help set the direction for this revolutionary technology and truly make an impact that matters!

Q-CTRL aims to bring together cross-functional teams from many different backgrounds to help achieve our goals - we strongly encourage you to apply even if you do not meet all of the requirements mentioned in the job posting.

Please be advised that our communications will only come from the @q-ctrl.com domain. All our active job postings are available on our company website.

To recruitment agencies, we do not accept unsolicited branded profiles and are not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.