{"id":3588590,"url":"https://alion.io/job/quera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch","title":"Senior Scientific Software Engineer — Autoresearch","company":{"id":179594,"name":"QuEra Computing","domain":"quera.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/quera-computing","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":68,"ghost_share":0.338,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":88,"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"}},"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":160400,"max":220400,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":220400},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"bandit","optional":true},{"name":"LLM","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-25T14:13:40Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-01","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T00:18:19Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":9,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":8},"description":"Summary\nQuEra Computing is hiring a Senior Scientific Software Engineer to build systems that automate theoretical and computational research in quantum computing.\nYou will develop a reusable autoresearch platform that generates hypotheses, implements and evaluates candidates, and uses accumulated evidence to guide further exploration. Initial applications include automated performance improvement across our software repositories, quantum-error-correction code discovery with QEC theorists, and architecture search with compiler researchers.\nThis is a hands-on engineering role with substantial technical ownership. You will combine classical search and optimization with AI agents, and develop methods that progressively improve the research process itself.\nResponsibilities\nDesign and build the autoresearch platform, including programmable search strategies, agent and tool integration, and reliable execution of long-running experiments.\nDevelop and evaluate search and optimization methods for generating, selecting, refining, and combining candidates under limited computational budgets.\nCollaborate with theorists and compiler researchers to translate research questions into search spaces, constraints, objectives, and executable evaluation procedures.\nEstablish reproducible evidence of progress through correctness checks, strong baselines, noise-aware measurement, and independent validation; deliver useful discoveries and software improvements.\nQualifications\nStrong software engineering skills and a record of independently delivering substantial research or developer tools, with proficiency in Rust or a comparable systems language and scientific programming in Python.\nDeep practical experience in search and optimization, particularly combinatorial optimization, evolutionary algorithms, meta-heuristics, or automated algorithm design.\nHands-on experience building automated discovery or optimization systems that iteratively generate candidates, execute experiments, and learn from feedback.\nStrong experimental judgment: choosing meaningful objectives, allocating evaluation budgets, diagnosing failures, and distinguishing genuine improvements from noise or evaluation artifacts.\nAbility to work with researchers across disciplines and turn mathematical ideas into reliable computational tools.\nPreferred Qualifications\nLLM-guided search, automated algorithm design, program synthesis, or autonomous research systems.\nEvolutionary computation, quality-diversity methods, tree search, hyper-heuristics, or adaptive selection of search operators.\nBayesian optimization, bandit methods, experimental design, or other approaches to allocating expensive evaluation budgets.\nPerformance engineering and automated software tuning, including profiling, benchmarking, and statistical treatment of measurement noise.\nInfrastructure for parallel experiments, isolated execution, checkpointing, and reproducible tracking of candidates and results.\nCompiler optimization, scheduling, routing, or hardware-software architecture search.\nComputational algebra, constraint solving, theorem proving, or formal verification.\nQuantum computing, quantum error correction, fault-tolerant architectures, or quantum simulation.\nSystems that improve their own search strategies, tools, or experimental workflows and reuse findings across tasks.\nWe value depth in relevant areas; experience across every topic is not expected.\nWe welcome experienced engineers and researchers, including recent PhD graduates with substantial implementation ownership. A PhD is welcome but not required.\nThe approximate base salary range for this position is $160,400 - $220,400.\nWe consistently monitor external market data and update base salary ranges accordingly. We determine base compensation decisions on several factors, including as geographic placement, role-specific knowledge, skills, and/or experience. In addition to our base salary offerings, we also provide equity grants for all new hires.\nQuEra is committed to cultivating a diverse work environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We highly value diversity in our current and future employees and do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4432,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Quantum Science & Computing","Quantum Computing Hardware"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-01T15:10:45Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 10","filings_12m":10,"filings_prev_12m":8,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":177500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":4}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":8,"expected_fill_days":88,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":220400,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/quera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/quera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T02:51:28Z","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_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4404,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"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":179594},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=179594"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fquera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch"},{"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%2Fquera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch"},{"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%2Fquera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch"},{"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/quera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fquera-computing-senior-scientific-software-engineer-autoresearch"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3588590}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"quera.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3588590},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. Docs: https://alion.io/developers"}}