Software Developer - Robotics/Automation/UI (Hybrid)

About Xanadu:

Xanadu’s mission is to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere.

At Xanadu, we are learners, innovators, researchers, collaborators and problem solvers. We are creating something that has never been built before. Few people in their life will be able to be a part of something like this, where if we are successful, the technologies we develop will solve some of the world’s most challenging problems, and literally change the world. And that is something to be excited about!

Your role and responsibilities

As a Software Engineer (Robotics/Automation/UI) at Xanadu, you will join our software-for-hardware team and work on multiple aspects of the control software operating our quantum devices and the infrastructure required to build these. Your main role will include working with physicists, engineers, and photonic chip designers to implement software to orchestrate the behavior of entire systems composed of multiple hardware actuators and data acquisition devices. Key results that you will deliver include the characterization and calibration of photonic chips designed by Xanadu’s chip design teams, successfully implementing functional tests of new quantum compute modules designed and assembled by our engineers, or the correct execution of quantum circuits on our fault-tolerant quantum computer prototypes. Being enthusiastic about best software development practices and clean code, you will also join the software-for-hardware team’s efforts to spread these skills throughout the company and support our scientists and hardware engineers in writing better code and efficiently using the software you and everyone else at Xanadu develops. 

Required qualifications and experience:

• Understanding of the full life cycle of software development, including version control, code review, testing, continuous integration, logging, documentation, maintenance, and user support
• Extensive (>4 years) expertise in Python programming for building automation tools and scripts, with the ability to employ programming paradigms such as object oriented and functional programming and related design patterns where applicable
• Experience in machine vision and robotics
• Ability to troubleshoot and fix issues anywhere in the hardware-software stack
• Hands-on experience building large, fault-tolerant, distributed systems meant to scale
• Proficiency with Linux, Docker, and networking
• Curiosity about new and unfamiliar technologies
• Excellent communication skills
• Desire to work and ability to thrive in a fast-paced research environment
• Willingness to work in Toronto downtown in person >=4 days a week
• Attention to detail, commitment to excellence

Preferred qualifications and experience:

• B.S., M.S., or PhD in computer science, physics, or related field
• Significant (>2 years) experience in writing instrumentation drivers and similar software, or experience with lab instrumentation frameworks
• Experience with middleware frameworks (e.g. ROS2, TANGO, DDS, SCADA)
• Experience in fitting experimental data and machine learning skills
• Working knowledge of a low-level programming language (e.g. C/C++) or of a hardware description language (e.g. Verilog)
• Experience with embedded software development, testing, and debugging 
• Activity in open source software projects
• Basic familiarity with photonics and optical physics
• Familiarity with quantum mechanics or quantum computation is an advantage but not required