Scientific Software Engineer - Developer Experience

Job summary

Summary QuEra is building the software stack for neutral-atom quantum computers, spanning four abstraction levels — logical, physical, atom shuttling, and pulse — each with its own compiler dialect and execution environment. The core language and compiler architecture are still taking shape, and the decisions made now will determine whether the stack is a joy or a burden to program against.

Qualifications

• Experience building developer-facing tooling: compiler frontends, LSP servers, linters, SDK APIs, or notebook tooling.
• Comfortable reading and writing both Rust (Kirin, execution layer) and Python (user-facing SDK).
• No compiler background required, but willing to work in the IR layer.
• Strong opinions on what "good" errors look like, and interest in improving them before they ship.
• Interest in influencing platform or language design, not just building on top of it.
• Comfortable prototyping against unstable APIs and feeding signal back into design.
• Willing to grow into compiler engineering — you'll work closely with an SSA-based compiler stack.
• Note on level: We're hiring across levels.
• More senior candidates drive multi-quarter arcs from problem to design to adoption across teams; more junior candidates focus on well-scoped pieces with more guidance.
• Preferred
• Visualization experience in technical domains (signal processing, compiler IR, timing diagrams).
• Familiarity with Python packaging and the scientific Python ecosystem.

Responsibilities

• You'll represent the developer's perspective while language semantics, API surfaces, and compiler architecture are still being decided — before those decisions harden.
• You'll work closely with the compiler team building on Kirin, our shared IR infrastructure (Rust), and across the Python SDK layers built on top of it.
• Shape foundation decisions: Bring a DX perspective into language design, IR architecture, and API reviews, pushing back when choices would make the stack hard to use.
• Prototype early: Build early error messages, visualizations, and workflow sketches — not to ship, but to stress-test API decisions while they're still changeable.
• Help define the error model: Contribute to a coherent contract for how errors are represented, surfaced, and attributed across compiler passes, from the circuit-level API down.
• Visualization: Contribute to circuit diagrams, error syndrome plots, and result analysis tooling as APIs stabilize.
• Developer workflow: Improve the path from Bloqade program to emulation output to hardware job — CLI, error messages, actionable feedback.
• Standard libraries: Help decide what gets promoted from internal example to first-class primitive, and write the first ones.

Degrees

Contract length