Physicist, System Operations

Quantum is now, and it's built here.

Oxford Ionics, now part of IonQ, is pioneering the next generation of quantum computing. Using our world-leading trapped-ion technology, we’re building the most powerful, accurate and reliable quantum systems to tackle problems that today’s supercomputers cannot solve. Joining Oxford Ionics means becoming part of a global IonQ team that is transforming the future of quantum technology - faster, at scale, and with real world impact.

IonQ, Inc. [NYSE: IONQ] is the world’s leading quantum company delivering solutions to solve the world’s most complex problems. IonQ’s newest generation quantum computers, IonQ Tempo and IonQ Forte Enterprise, are the latest in cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners such as Amazon Web Services, AstraZeneca, and NVIDIA achieve 20x performance results. The company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance in 2025.

The company is accelerating its technology roadmap and intends to deliver the world’s most powerful quantum computers with 2 million qubits by 2030 to accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. IonQ’s advancements in quantum networking position the company as a leader in building the quantum internet.

We are looking for a Senior Physicist, System Operations to join our System Operations team at IonQ. In this role, you will be responsible for operating, maintaining, and improving our trapped-ion quantum computers, contributing to the team’s mission of keeping IonQ’s quantum systems running reliably and effectively.

You’ll play an important part in shaping the processes, observability, automation, and maintenance practices that support our work in building and operating advanced quantum systems. In the first few months, the focus will be on learning how to maintain the hardware and software that underpin our commercial and development systems.

What You'll be Doing:

In this position, you will work on the day-to-day operation, monitoring, maintenance, and optimisation of our quantum computing systems, supporting the effective delivery of reliable system performance across commercial and development environments. You’ll have the opportunity to improve uptime, strengthen operational practices, and deepen understanding of hardware behaviour through data and hands-on system work, contributing directly to the success of the wider quantum computing programme.

Key responsibilities include:

• Participate in follow-the-sun on-call rotations to help keep systems running at peak performance.
• Build and maintain observability and automation to support high uptime across commercial and development quantum computers.
• Carry out regular and emergency hardware maintenance on trapped-ion quantum systems.
• Interpret telemetry data to diagnose system status and improve understanding of hardware behaviour.
• Collaborate across teams and time zones, including coordinating with customers on system access and status updates.