Software Engineering Manager

Job Description

The future is quantum. Oxford Ionics is a high-performance quantum computing company delivering world-leading innovations to create the most powerful, accurate and reliable quantum computers to solve the world's most important problems. Quantum Computing offers a radically new way of building computers that harnesses the power of quantum physics to outperform conventional supercomputers exponentially. Using our unique trapped-ion technology, we are at the forefront of the race to unleash the real potential of quantum computing.

What to expect

We’re looking for an enthusiastic and hands-on Software Engineering Manager who will thrive in our dynamic cross-disciplinary environment. You’d be working closely with our skilled software engineers and our world-leading quantum scientists to plan and manage the development of software that powers our quantum computers.

You’d be joining an established software team of four software engineers. We have some well-established ways of working that we’re confident in, and other aspects of our work that we need your help with! In particular, we are looking forward to having someone on the team who is excited about and skilled at management. We want someone who is excited to collaborate as a member of the software team to figure out new processes and to take on the responsibilities that we haven’t been doing justice.

You’d be reporting directly to Tom, our CTO and co-founder.

What you’ll be responsible for

• Product management
• Working with the software engineers and other technical teams to build long-term roadmaps for our various software projects
• Keeping these roadmaps up-to-date
• Capturing the initial skeletons of feature requests from ad-hoc conversations
• Discussing potential software solutions with the software engineers
• Backlog refinement: taking responsibility for the software team’s backlog, working with the other software team members to keep it up to date
• Being the first point of call for others in the company to get more information about how the software fits together at a high level
• Project management
• Working with our project managers
• Maintaining awareness of timelines and communicating ramifications to the rest of the company and vice versa
• Team management
• Managing and supporting other members of the software team:
• Looking out for their well-being
• Making yourself available to hear their questions and concerns
• Conducting their performance reviews
• Supporting their career development
• Working with the rest of the software team and the CTO to plan the future growth of the software team
• Working with the existing members of the software team to understand the team’s culture, and taking responsibility for how that culture evolves as the team grows
• Process
• Leading the definition of any team-internal processes in consultation with the rest of the software team
• Actively engaging with these processes and being willing to take on parts of them that better enable the software engineers to do their work
• Working collaboratively with other teams to develop stronger cross-team interfaces and processes
• Consciously considering how process informs team culture, and vice-versa

Requirements

Communication and technical knowledge

Your communication skills will be vital in successfully sharing information across team boundaries. The level of experience and interaction with software varies greatly across our technical teams, and we need someone confident being the face of the software team across these different contexts.

We need someone who can confidently translate potentially vague feature requests and user needs into more concrete information that can be used within the software team. You should be confident discussing potential software solutions with the software engineers at an architectural level. Understanding software terms and having a feel for what might be feasible in software is necessary to succeed in this task, so we expect you will have some past experience as a software engineer.

Management experience

Some experience in the management responsibilities outlined above is important to us, but we’re open to candidates who either have a long track record in technical management, or who have only recently started growing their careers in this direction.

Culture

We want you to share our enthusiasm for collaboration – both inside the software team, and in the wider team of engineers and scientists at Oxford Ionics. We are building cutting-edge technology, and we can’t do that without working effectively together. To us, that means respect for the different skills (technical and otherwise) that go towards building quantum computers, and building collaborative solutions that take into account these different perspectives.

We want someone who understands the immense value that useful processes can bring to an organisation, but also the immense cost that bad processes can bring. A successful candidate will be thoughtful about the trade-offs involved in establishing new ways of working.

Our technology stack

We don’t require you to have experience in these specific technologies, but we thought you would be interested to know what our technology stack looks like.

Python and Rust

• Much of our software is used by our scientists when executing routines on our quantum hardware. The APIs used by the scientists are all Python-based.
• Our custom optimising compiler for quantum circuits written in Rust, with a small Python front-end.
• The firmware components of the instrumentation and control system we use, ARTIQ, are written in Rust. We will be customising and extending this firmware to improve performance and add new features.

FPGAs and SoCs

• Oxford Ionics develops custom hardware and gateware to extend our real-time distributed control system.

Qubits

• The quantum core of our hardware is built from trapped-ion qubits, controlled by chips designed and assembled in-house by our microfabrication team.

Working patterns

This role can be full-time, or we can support four days a week part-time. Those four working days could be split over four or five calendar days. We are a hybrid team, with all the software engineers working remotely two or more days a week. We expect three days a week in the office to be a sensible minimum for this role.

Benefits

Oxford Ionics is at the cutting edge of quantum innovation. We need people like you with the necessary skills, vision and capability. In return, we'll recognise your engagement and excellence with a range of benefits. You'll find opportunities to further your career with a world-class team, business stock options, uncapped annual leave, flexible working hours with either hybrid or onsite working, private medical and dental insurance for you and your family and much more.

Oxford Ionics is committed to equal opportunity for all.