Design Engineer, Integration & Access

We are hiring a Design Engineer into Integration & Access, the team that owns everything a person or system touches on the way to our quantum computers: the frontend and its APIs, the SDKs for qubit and QML workloads, the worked examples, the documentation, and the exploration notebooks our researchers use. You will own how that feels to use, and you do both the design and the build.

The design problem is hard for reasons unrelated to visual craft. A user needs to see what their circuit will do, what the device can run, where their job sits in a queue, which qubits were healthy when it ran, and what a result with shot noise means. Most of that has no established design language.

Two audiences want different things. External developers want a program down and results back with as little quantum physics as the problem allows. Our own physicists want depth, control and the raw numbers. Serving both without building two products is much of the job.

Based at our Sydney facility, you will work closely with the engineers who own the API and SDK components, and with the researchers and customers who use what you build. This is a role for someone with real depth in both design and code, who can put a clear interface on top of a system that has never had one before.

• →Own the user experience across the developer-facing surface: the Quantum Circuit UI, the SDKs, the documentation and the exploration notebooks
• →Design and build the web frontends, taking the work from research and wireframes through to production code
• →Design the visual language for quantum concepts that need it: circuits, device topology and qubit layouts, job state and queueing, calibration and qubit health, and the quantum results
• →Work with the engineers who own the API and SDK components to design a UI that is compelling and simple to use
• →Design the onboarding path that takes a developer from first contact to a running program, including the worked examples and execution documentation
• →Build and maintain a component library and design system so all interfaces stay consistent as the stack grows
• →Make the interfaces accessible and usable, including keyboard paths, contrast and screen reader support
• →Handle the visualisation and performance problems that come with large circuits, long job histories and dense result sets
• →Document design decisions and the reasoning behind them for team consistency and product quality

• 4+ years designing and building web interfaces, with real depth in both the design and the code
• Strong frontend engineering: TypeScript, a modern framework such as React, Vue or Svelte, CSS, and the browser platform
• A portfolio of interfaces built for technical or specialist users
• Interaction and interface design skills, including information architecture, prototyping and design systems
• Data visualisation in the browser, with D3, SVG, Canvas or WebGL
• User research practice: choosing the right method, running it, and implementing the outcomes
• Accessibility as a working habit, and awareness of the standards and legislation behind it
• Comfort reading and writing Python well enough to work in notebooks and follow SDK code
• Version control, testing and code review as part of your normal workflow
• The ability to make a clear interface atop complex systems

• Developer tools, scientific software, IDEs, or other interfaces built for people who write code
• Quantum computing exposure, including any of Qiskit, PennyLane or Cirq (no physics degree required)
• Technical documentation and API reference design
• Jupyter and JupyterLab, including extensions and custom widgets
• Graph, network or circuit visualisation, and the layout problems that come with it
• Rendering performance work on large canvases or dense data
• Design systems maintained across multiple products or teams
• Working with 3D or spatial representations, such as device layouts and Bloch spheres
• Contributing design to open source projects
• Working directly with commercial customers on how they use a product

SQC is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse perspectives and experiences, and encourage applications from candidates who may not meet every listed requirement. If you’re excited about the role and believe you can contribute, we encourage you to apply.

This position may require access to export-controlled information or technology. Employment may be subject to applicable export control laws and may require eligibility assessment based on factors such as nationality, citizenship, or residency, and, where necessary, obtaining relevant export licenses or approvals.

SQC was founded by renowned physicist and materials scientist Michelle Simmons, who pioneered the field of atomic electronics, including the development of the world’s first single-atom transistor and the first integrated circuit built with atomic precision. Our Chair, Simon Segars, former CEO of Arm, is a leader in the semiconductor industry and was instrumental in developing the processors that powered the mobile computing revolution.