Software Engineer, Back end (Boulder Opal)

About the position

As a Senior Back-end Engineer on the Boulder Opal Scale Up team, you will work with a team of brilliant engineers to design and develop a scalable, high-performance backend system while playing a key role in helping our research team in solution engineering. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver cutting-edge solutions that power our quantum products, from SDKs to cloud-based offerings. This role is ideal for someone passionate about Back-end engineering and quantum physics in a fast-paced, innovative environment.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize scalable client and backend applications using Python.
• Build high-efficiency service-to-service communication using modern protocols.
• Closely liaise with researchers and scientists to efficiently support their software needs, translate research code to production, and share knowledge on engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with product, frontend, and infrastructure teams to deliver integrated, end-to-end solutions.
• Implement and enforce best practices for code quality, security, and operational efficiency.
• Troubleshoot, optimize, and enhance system performance and reliability.
• Implement product features that promote architecture reuse across business cases.
• Analyze experimental data to identify trends, detect anomalies, and inform engineering decisions.
• Other duties within the Employee's skills and experience, or with reasonable training.

Requirements

• Up to 5+ years of experience in backend software development with Python, Rust, C++ or similar.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across research and engineering teams.
• Strong problem-solving skills and proactive approach to finding solutions.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills across cross-functional and agile teams.
• Proficient in designing and implementing efficient algorithms, statistical models, and data pipelines to process and analyze large-scale experimental datasets.

Nice-to-haves

• Hands-on experience with gRPC or similar frameworks (GraphQL, RESTful) for building high-performance services.
• Experience with cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure), and cloud infrastructure management.
• Knowledge of database optimization and scaling techniques.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and microservices architecture.
• Experience with Python web frameworks such as Django, Flask, or FastAPI.
• Experience in developing frameworks or tools for complex computational systems, such as hardware calibration, signal processing, or scientific computing.
• Familiarity with designing, implementing, and maintaining data models to support scalable and efficient data processing.
• Knowledge/familiarity with quantum physics/quantum computing.
• Previous experience working in a start-up or scale-up environment.
• Experience in data visualization or reporting tools (e.g. Plotly, Dash, Jupyter Notebooks, or similar).

Benefits

• Flexibility: We embrace workplace flexibility so you worry more about your impact vs a rigid work schedule.
• Attractive salary: You'll get to have the start-up impact without the start-up wages.
• Equity: We want people to have a sense of ownership in what they do and offer the potential for equity share and annual bonuses.
• Cash bonus: We recognize exceptional performance and impact by offering annual discretionary cash bonuses.
• Resources: We are well funded by the world's best technology investors, letting us chase our ambitions with minimal constraints.
• Parental support: We offer paid parental leave to support you and your loved ones.
• Diversity: We're an equal opportunity employer and actively support initiatives like the 'Global Women in Quantum' program to help expand the quantum workforce.
• Unique culture: You'll be surrounded by some of the world's leading physicists, engineers, product, marketing and design people (to name a few!) with a strong desire to learn and transfer knowledge.
• Meaningful values: You'll work with an incredibly supportive team who work consistently to deliver our core values to be real, be trusted, be just and to be revered.
• Personal development: We provide you with a personal development and wellness budget.
• Make a dent: Last but not least you'll have the unique opportunity to help set the direction for this revolutionary technology and truly make an impact that matters!