Senior Software Engineer (Innovation)
First seen by Alion on Oct 6, 2026.
Senior Software Engineer — Innovation Team
QNu Labs | Bengaluru | On-site | 5+ years of experience
Most software never has to care whether a single-photon detector is drifting. Ours does.
QNu Labs builds quantum security products: quantum random number generators (QRNG), quantum key distribution (QKD), and the classical software that turns lab hardware into something a customer can install, run, and trust. The Innovation Team is looking for a senior engineer who can take a hard, loosely defined problem and ship a reliable system on real hardware.
You do not need a quantum physics background. You do need to be comfortable working next to the hardware and the people who build it.
ABOUT THE ROLE
We run several projects in parallel across QRNG, QKD, and quantum communications. You will go deep on one system at a time and stay familiar with the ones around it. Assignments change as the programme does, so we care more about how you engineer than which project you start on.
WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON
• QRNG: the path from a quantum entropy source to random bits another system can trust: device control, calibration, health tests, conditioning, and a service interface.
• QKD: the classical half of key distribution: link control, detection-data collection, sifting and post-processing into secret key, link-health monitoring, and key delivery.
• Security integration: key management and ETSI-oriented QKD interfaces so encryptors and applications can consume quantum-generated keys.
• Deployment: taking systems from a developer machine to packaged releases running at trial and customer sites.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Own substantial systems end to end: design, build, deploy, operate, and improve them.
• Turn vague requirements into a buildable plan, and push back when the requirements are weak.
• Define clean interfaces with optics, firmware, FPGA, and embedded engineers so a hardware revision doesn't force a software rewrite.
• Write software that handles drift, signal loss, sync errors, and failed health checks, not just the happy path.
• Make failures diagnosable through logs, tests, and operator views.
• Use AI tools to move faster while verifying correctness and security yourself.
• Lead design discussions, review code carefully, and mentor other engineers.
MUST HAVE
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong CS fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, concurrency, networking, operating systems.
• At least one system you designed and personally took to production, and supported after release.
• Hands-on experience writing software that talks to physical hardware (instruments, devices, embedded boards, FPGAs, sensors, or similar).
• The ability to explain architectural trade-offs, including how systems fail.
NICE TO HAVE
• Cryptography, key management, or security protocol experience.
• Signal processing, data acquisition, or real-time data pipelines.
• Experience shipping software to on-prem, field, or customer-site environments.
• Exposure to quantum technology, photonics, or telecom systems.
THIS ROLE IS PROBABLY NOT FOR YOU IF
• You haven't yet owned a system in production.
• Your work so far has been purely application or web-layer and you have no interest in hardware.
• You prefer a fixed, well-specified scope to working through ambiguity.
YOUR FIRST 90 DAYS
• Learn one live system end to end: the hardware, control software, data path, and how keys or random bits leave the box.
• Run it in the lab, follow a build into a deployed environment, and document the gaps.
• Ship a scoped improvement onto real hardware, with evidence it works.
• Write a short technical plan for what comes next on that product.
HOW TO APPLY
Apply with Easy Apply and answer the screening questions honestly. One of them asks for a number: the answer is 7.
- If you're shortlisted, we'll ask you to walk us through one system you shipped to production: what you personally decided, and one thing that broke after release and how you found it.