Microsoft · 15 hours ago
Principal Quantum Systems Software Development Engineer
United States, Washington, Redmond
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$140K/yr - $275K/yr
6+ years expMicrosoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As a Principal Quantum Systems Software Development Engineer in our Quantum Systems organization, you will lead software architecture and delivery of software components that connect topological qubit hardware to compilers, runtimes, services, and tools, collaborating across disciplines to turn research breakthroughs into robust, production-grade systems.
Agentic AIApplication Performance ManagementArtificial Intelligence (AI)Business DevelopmentDevOpsInformation ServicesInformation TechnologyManagement Information SystemsNetwork SecuritySoftware
No H1B
U.S. Citizen Only
Responsibilities
Integrate the topological qubit platform with Microsoft’s quantum software stack. Define and evolve interfaces between device control/readout, error‑syndrome pipelines, QIR/QDK toolchains, and Azure services
Drive the software architecture and technical roadmap for scale‑up. Lead multi‑year design for control, decoding, and orchestration systems that support progressively larger topological QPUs and higher logical‑qubit counts
Design, implement, integrate, and test major system components. Ship production‑quality services, runtimes, and APIs spanning device orchestration, calibration & tuning automation, data pipelines, observability, and reliability
Use AI every day to go faster and improve quality. Apply Copilot/LLM workflows for design reviews, code generation, test authoring, telemetry triage, and experiment planning; establish team guardrails for responsible AI use in engineering
Lead and mentor. Provide technical guidance, design leadership, and coaching for junior and mid‑career engineers; set high bars for code health, testing, documentation, and design rigor; Champion secure-by-default practices
Champion engineering excellence. Drive secure‑by‑design practices, CI/CD, robust test strategy (simulation‑in‑the‑loop and hardware‑in‑the‑loop), live‑site standards, and measurable quality gates across the stack
Collaborate across disciplines. Work directly with experimentalists, control & readout electronics engineers, quantum architects, and compiler/runtime teams to turn requirements into shipped capabilities
Qualification
Required
Doctorate in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years software industry experience, including developing commercial software, compilers, scientific computing applications, or multi-component systems OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years software industry experience, including developing commercial software, compilers, scientific computing applications OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years software industry experience, including developing commercial software, compilers, scientific computing applications OR equivalent experience
6+ years programming experience in related programming languages
6+ years experience in a collaborative environment
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter. Citizenship & Citizenship Verification: This role will require access to information that is controlled for export under export control regulations, potentially under the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or Export Administration Regulations (EAR), the EU Dual Use Regulation, and/or other export control regulations. As a condition of employment, the successful candidate will be required to provide either proof of their country of citizenship or proof of their U.S. permanent residency or other protected status (e.g., under 8 U.S.C. § 1324b(a)(3)) for assessment of eligibility to access the export-controlled information. To meet this legal requirement, and as a condition of employment, the successful candidate's citizenship will be verified with a valid passport. Lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees may verify status using other documents, where applicable
Ability to work in an 'AI first' environment using modern AI tools to accelerate discovery through hardware development
Familiarity with designing and building AI agents/copilots that assist with experiment setup, log triage, measurement report generation, protocol templating, and knowledge retrieval (e.g. instrument manuals, design docs)
Preferred
Proven experience leading architecture for complex, multi‑service platforms; setting technical direction and landing it across teams
Proficient on Windows and Linux; confident with VS Code, CMake, Git/GitHub, Azure DevOps, and deep proficiency in one or more of: C++/Python/Rust/C#, with strong systems design and debugging skills
Background in quantum computing systems or nearby domains (controls/FPGA/firmware, compilers/runtime systems, real‑time signal processing, or HPC/streaming data)
Hands‑on with some of the following: hardware/software integration, device drivers/HALs, real‑time or near‑real‑time data paths, RPC/gRPC, observability (metrics/logs/traces), and CI/CD
Benefits
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.
Company
Microsoft
Microsoft is a software corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services.
10001+ employees
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$1MKey Investors
Technology Venture Investors
2022-12-09Post Ipo Equity
1986-03-13IPO
1981-09-01Series Unknown· $1M
Leadership Team
Satya Nadella
Chairman and CEO
Vukani Mngxati
Chief Executive Officer - Microsft South Africa
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