{"id":693910,"url":"https://alion.io/job/ionq-senior-research-software-engineer","title":"Senior Research Software Engineer","company":{"id":1800,"name":"Ionq","domain":"ionq.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/ionq","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":76,"open_postings":28,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.964,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":35,"computed_at":"2026-10-05T05:45:15Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Boston, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":145920,"max":191047,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":191047},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"IonQ","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"GCP","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-05-20T02:33:31Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-10","last_verified_at":"2026-10-06T01:30:16Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":139,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":138},"description":"About IonQ: \n\nIonQ, Inc. [NYSE: IONQ] is the world’s leading quantum platform and merchant supplier - delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers, the IonQ Tempo, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners including Amazon Web Services,andAstraZeneca achieve 20x performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance.\nHeadquartered in College Park, Maryland, IonQ has operations in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Our quantum computing services are available through all major cloud providers, while we also meet the needs of networking and sensing customers across land, sea, air, and space. IonQ is making quantum platforms more accessible and impactful than ever before. \nLocation: This role is based at our Boston, MA office, with the option to work a few days a week in-office.\nTravel: Up to 10% domestic\nJob ID: 1605\nThe Role: \n\nWe are looking for a Senior Software Engineer. As a Senior Software Engineer, you'll be part of a cross-functional team whose mission is to lead IonQ on its journey to build the world's best quantum computers to solve the world's most complex problems. In this role, you will apply your deep technical expertise to build and maintain scalable, reliable, and researcher-friendly software that empowers our scientists to accelerate their research and development efforts in quantum networking, computing, and sensing. You will play a pivotal role in shaping our software architecture, driving SDLC best practices, improving system stability and observability, and mentoring a talented team to deliver innovative solutions that push the boundaries of quantum technology. \nResponsibilities:\nDevelop, maintain, and support the research and development (R&D) software used by our scientists, ensuring its stability, performance, and day-to-day reliability.\nOwn the general software development lifecycle for our R&D codebases, including triaging and fixing bugs, addressing regressions, and improving long-term code health.\nImprove observability across our R&D software stack (logging, metrics, tracing, alerting) so issues are caught early and root-caused quickly.\nContribute to the design, implementation, and management of our backend and frontend for R&D data acquisition.\nDesign, build, and maintain the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines to ensure quality and rapid, reliable deployments.\nDesign and implement robust systems for the automated calibration and bring-up of lab equipment.\nReview scientist-contributed code, providing constructive feedback and guidance on code cleanliness, architecture, and best practices.\nInterface with other IonQ software teams to ensure alignment and integration across systems.\nProactively identify opportunities to make R&D software more accessible, scalable, and self-service for scientists. \nRequirements:\nBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent training, fellowship, or work experience.\n5+ years professional experience in software engineering, including work on complex, cross-functional systems.\nStrong proficiency in Python, and comfort working below it when needed: debugging across the stack, reasoning about concurrency and async, networking protocols, and performance profiling.\nExperience owning the full SDLC for production software, including debugging, incident response, and ongoing maintenance.\nExperience designing, building, and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.\nExperience writing clear, concise, and comprehensive user-facing documentation, including tutorials, API reference guides, and internal knowledge base articles. \nPreferred Qualifications:\n\n8+ years of professional software experience, ideally in a scientific or R&D environment, supporting research teams.\nExperience developing software for hardware control, automation, or data acquisition.\nDemonstrated experience mentoring and providing technical leadership to other engineers.\nExperience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and modern DevOps practices.\nExperience with database design and management. \nWhat success looks like:\nIn your first few months, you'll have onboarded across our R&D codebases, started shipping fixes and reviewing scientist contributions, and identified the biggest stability and observability gaps to tackle.\nYou act as a trusted partner to the scientists on the team: helping them write and structure code, supporting their tooling and documentation needs, running code reviews focused on software quality (organization, readability, maintainability), and flagging cases where deeper science-related review might be needed. No physics or quantum background required, but genuine interest in supporting research work is essential.\nBy the end of your first six months, you'll own the SDLC health of at least one major codebase, with measurably improved observability and faster diagnosis of production issues.\nBy the end of your first year, you'll be a recognized technical leader on the team, having driven at least one cross-cutting initiative that improved stability or contributor experience across our stack, and actively mentoring other engineers or scientist contributors. \nThe approximate base salary range for this position is $145,920 - $191,047. The total compensation package includes base, bonus, equity, and a range of benefit options found on our career site.\nCompensation will vary based on individual factors such as education, qualifications, and experience of the final candidate(s), specific office location, and calibration against relevant market data and internal team equity. Posted base salary figures are subject to change as new market data becomes available. Our benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, matching 401(k), unlimited PTO and paid holidays, parental/adoption leave, legal insurance, and a home technology stipend. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided when a candidate receives an offer of employment. \nAt IonQ, we believe in fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all while striving to identify and eliminate barriers. We empower employees to thrive by fostering a culture of autonomy, productivity, and respect. We are dedicated to creating an environment where individuals can feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued.\nWe are committed to equity and justice. We welcome different voices and viewpoints and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by law. We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer.\nUS Technical Jobs. The position you are applying for will require access to technology that is subject to U.S. export control and government contract restrictions. Employment with IonQ is contingent on either verifying “U.S. Person” (e.g., U.S. citizen, U.S. national, U.S. permanent resident, or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum) status for export controls and government contracts work, obtaining any necessary license, and/or confirming the availability of a license exception under U.S. export controls. Please note that in the absence of confirming you are a U.S. Person for export control and government contracts work purposes, IonQ may choose not to apply for a license or decline to use a license exception (if available) for you to access export-controlled technology that may require authorization, and similarly, you may not qualify for government contracts work that requires U.S. Persons, and IonQ may decline to proceed with your application on those bases alone. Accordingly, we will have some additional questions regarding your immigration status that will be used for export control and compliance purposes, and the answers will be reviewed by compliance personnel to ensure compliance with federal law. \nUS Non-Technical Jobs. Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum. Accordingly, we will have some additional questions regarding your immigration status that will be used for export control and compliance purposes, and the answers will be reviewed by compliance personnel to ensure compliance with federal law.\nIf you are interested in being a part of our team and mission, we encourage you to apply!","description_format":"text","description_chars":9057,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Unlimited PTO"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US"}],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Quantum Computing Hardware"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T01:29:15Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":11,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.388,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":138,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-05T05:45:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":191047,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/ionq-senior-research-software-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/ionq-senior-research-software-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-06T02:58:47Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4481,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":519,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-07T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1800},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1800"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fionq-senior-research-software-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fionq-senior-research-software-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fionq-senior-research-software-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/ionq-senior-research-software-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fionq-senior-research-software-engineer"}]}