Senior Research Software Engineer

Requirements: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent training, fellowship, or work experience. 5+ years professional experience in software engineering, including work on complex, cross-functional systems. Strong proficiency in Python, and comfort working below it when needed: debugging across the stack, reasoning about concurrency and async, networking protocols, and performance profiling. Experience owning the full SDLC for production software, including debugging, incident response, and ongoing maintenance. Experience designing, building, and maintaining CI/CD pipelines. Experience writing clear, concise, and comprehensive user-facing documentation, including tutorials, API reference guides, and internal knowledge base articles. Preferred Qualifications: 8+ years of professional software experience, ideally in a scientific or R&D environment, supporting research teams. Experience developing software for hardware control, automation, or data acquisition. Demonstrated experience mentoring and providing technical leadership to other engineers. Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and modern DevOps practices. Experience with database design and management. What success looks like: In 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. You 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. By 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. By 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. The 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. Compensation 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. At 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. We 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. US 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. US 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. If you are interested in being a part of our team and mission, we encourage you to apply!