Alice & Bob is developing the first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer to solve the world’s hardest problems.
The quantum computer we envision building is based on a new kind of superconducting qubit: the Schrödinger cat qubit 🐈⬛. In comparison to other superconducting platforms, cat qubits have the astonishing ability to implement quantum error correction autonomously!
We're a diverse team of 250+ brilliant minds from over 35 countries united by a single goal: to revolutionise computing with a practical fault-tolerant quantum machine. Are you ready to take on unprecedented challenges and contribute to revolutionising technology? Join us, and let's shape the future of quantum computing together!
The team:
The Pulse Team is responsible for developing the low-level software stack that controls the hardware systems enabling our physicists to conduct cutting-edge quantum experiments, and eventually be at the core of our quantum computer.
About the role:
As a Senior Software Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in designing, developing, and maintaining robust, high-performance software solutions at the core of our technology. Acting as a technical leader within the team, you will drive architectural decisions, champion engineering best practices, and mentor junior engineers to support their professional growth. You will be in charge of developing the low level of our stack, as close as possible to our hardware.
Your work will be central in bridging scientific R&D, data engineering, and production-grade platform design while enabling researchers and physicists to iterate rapidly without compromising reliability.
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Responsibilities:
- Design and maintain low-level drivers and hardware abstraction layers for control electronics — including signal generators, AWGs, digitizers, and custom FPGA-based instruments.
- Define clean hardware/software interfaces that decouple control electronics from higher-level experiment logic, enabling fast hardware iteration without breaking the software stack.
- Collaborate closely with physicists and researchers to ensure models and interfaces reflect real experimental needs and enable fast iteration.
- Drive long-term architectural strategy, technical roadmap, and cross-organizational alignment.
- Mentor teams, challenge assumptions, and lead architecture reviews across the platform department.
Requirements:
- 8+ years experience designing low level software stack, close to the hardware.
- Superior engineering proficiency in Python
- Ability to define clean abstractions and synchronization mechanisms for hardware/software interaction loops — including real-time constraints, timing accuracy, and low-latency communication with control hardware.
- Hands-on experience writing drivers or low-level interfaces for hardware instruments (e.g. via VISA, SCPI, PCIe, Ethernet/UDP, or custom protocols).
- Solid understanding of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) fundamentals — sampling, filtering, modulation/demodulation, and their application to waveform generation and acquisition.
- Ability to collaborate and challenge ideas with physicists, academic-level experts, and deeply technical researchers.
- Strong technical leadership: able to influence direction, align teams, and support cross-domain decision-making.
Nice to have :
- Hands-on experience with automation systems (schedulers, workflow engines, configuration graphs, data pipelines).
- Strong product mindset: ability to think about end-to-end delivery, user experience, reliability, and long-term lifecycle.
- Experience delivering a hardware-backed product (accelerators, HPC nodes, scientific instruments) to external users.
Recruitment Process:
- Screening call with Doriane (30 min)
- Hiring Manager Interview (45 min)
- Technical Interview with the Team (60 min)
- Leadership Interview (30 min)
- Fit Interview (30 min)
- Reference check
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Benefits:
- Our success is your success: own it with our BSPCE plan
- Direct IP Compensation: Earn substantial bonuses for driving the core patents that define our quantum architecture.
- Flexible remote policy, up to 40 % a month
- A Parental plan including additional benefits such as crèche support or additional days-off to take care of under 12 years old children
- Subsidized membership withUrban Sports Club
- Mental health support with moka.care
- 25-day vacation policy (as per French law) + RTT
- Half of transportation cost coverage (as per French law), or yearly allowance for the die-hard bicycle users
- Competitive health coverage, with Alan.
- Meal vouchers with Swile, as well as access to a fully equipped and regularly stocked kitchen
- French language courses covered by the company for those interested
Research shows that women might feel hesitant to apply for this job if they don't match 100% of the job requirements listed. This list is a guide, and we'd love to receive your application even if you think you're only a partial match. We are looking to build teams that innovate, not just tick boxes on a job spec.
You will join of one of the most innovative startups in France at an early stage, to be part of a passionate and friendly team on its mission to build the first universal quantum computer!
We love to share and learn from one another, so you will be certain to innovate, develop new ideas, and have the space to grow.
TECHNICAL & MARKET ANALYSIS | Appended by Quantum.Jobs
The emergence of Staff Software Engineer roles specializing in pulse-level control represents a critical transition in the quantum hardware sector from laboratory-scale experiments to integrated systems engineering. These positions are structurally necessary to resolve the interface bottleneck between high-level algorithmic logic and the physical control of individual qubits through deterministic waveform generation. By establishing high-performance software layers that interact directly with cryogenic and FPGA-based instrumentation, this role type serves as a primary stabilizer for the hardware-software co-design layer. Market signals from global technology roadmaps highlight that such expertise is essential for mitigating the systemic risks of technology obsolescence as architectures move toward autonomous error correction. This function effectively translates abstract physical requirements into production-grade platform designs, securing the foundation for fault-tolerant scalability within the deep-tech value chain.
The quantum hardware landscape is undergoing a decisive shift from academic fabrication to industrial-grade manufacturing. While diverse hardware modalities continue to emerge, the primary bottleneck for achieving fault-tolerant utility has shifted to the middleware and control stack. This structural layer is responsible for managing the high-speed synchronization and signal processing required to maintain qubit coherence and execute high-fidelity gates. Current sector-wide focus lies on bridging classical and quantum capabilities at scale, necessitating a sophisticated management of the low-latency communication loops between classical controllers and quantum processors.
Workforce scarcity is particularly acute at the intersection of digital signal processing and low-level software architecture. As organizations move beyond NISQ-era benchmarks, the ecosystem requires specialized engineers who can navigate the fragmentation of hardware instrumentation and the lack of standardized control protocols. Current industry dynamics, influenced by national security mandates and public-private funding cycles, place a premium on roles that can drive interoperability across disparate hardware-backed products. This structural layer of expertise is the primary mechanism for maintaining experimental throughput as the technology transitions through varying Technology Readiness Levels.
Integration with heterogeneous control electronics remains a high-risk dependency for the sector. The evolution of the value chain depends on the ability to define clean hardware abstraction layers that decouple experiment logic from the underlying physical instruments. Consequently, the availability of senior engineers capable of architecting these complex cross-functional interfaces is a primary determinant of whether a quantum organization can successfully transition from discovery to scalable system delivery. Ongoing ecosystem initiatives aim to accelerate readiness for practical quantum applications by standardizing these low-level software frameworks.
The capability architecture for this role type centers on the synchronization of advanced digital signal processing with the protocols of production-grade systems engineering. Mastery of the low-level software stack is essential for ensuring that pulse-level controls are optimized for the specific constraints of quantum hardware, such as real-time synchronization and timing accuracy. This requires a deep understanding of the integration points between Python-based experiment logic and the underlying drivers for AWGs, digitizers, and custom FPGA instruments. These capabilities are fundamental to the throughput of technology organizations, as they enable the parallelization of scientific research alongside the development of scalable, hardware-agnostic software stacks. By establishing robust verification and validation frameworks at the driver level, this function provides the leverage needed to iterate rapidly on hardware designs without compromising system reliability. Furthermore, the ability to manage complex timing and synchronization across distributed electronics ensures that the physical outputs are reconciled with the practical constraints of fault-tolerant architectures. - Accelerates the deterministic transition from laboratory physics experiments to industrial-grade quantum computer architectures
- Mitigates systemic execution risks by synchronizing low-level software development with hardware engineering roadmaps
- Facilitates the integration of high-performance control stacks into standardized high-performance computing environments
- Strengthens the reliability of hardware-software interfaces through the implementation of clean architectural abstractions
- Reduces iteration friction between fundamental quantum research and the deployment of production-grade platforms
- Optimizes the allocation of technical talent by bridging the gap between scientific R\&D and platform engineering
- Enhances the stability of the quantum supply chain by providing predictable requirement frameworks for instrumentation vendors
- Supports the scaling of qubit control by managing the complex dependencies of real-time digital signal processing
- Improves the transparency of technology readiness level progression for stakeholders in the investment sector
- Enables the structural reproducibility of quantum experiments through the standardization of pulse-level control protocols
- Protects high-capital hardware investments by ensuring alignment between control software and physical qubit constraints
- Orchestrates the convergence of academic-level research pathways with the practical demands of enterprise-ready systemsIndustry Tags: Quantum Hardware Control, Pulse Engineering, Low-Level Software Architecture, Fault-Tolerant Computing, Digital Signal Processing, Superconducting Qubits, Hardware Abstraction Layers, FPGA Integration, Systems Engineering
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