Quantum Software Developer - Compilation

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 part of the PennyLane Compilation team, you will be responsible for developing and maintaining JIT and AOT hybrid compilation pipelines for PennyLane, an open-source software framework for quantum machine learning, quantum computing, and quantum chemistry.

You will:

• Convert abstract descriptions of algorithms into efficient & understandable software implementations.
• Perform R&D to support new hardware platforms, programming paradigms, and software tooling to enable optimal performance for quantum computing workloads.
• Interpret and communicate complex concepts to the wider team.
• Participate in software system specification, design, and quality assurance (e.g., requirements gathering, defining software architecture, documentation, verification & validation, etc.).
• Provide leadership in software best practices, including continuous-integration pipelines, unit testing, documentation, and code reviews.

Basic qualifications and experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Physics, Computer Science, Math, Engineering, or a related field.
• 2+ years of development experience in modern optimizing compilers, for a variety of architectures.
• Strong knowledge of Python and C++.
• Experience with benchmarking and performance-oriented optimizations.
• Strong focus on testing and software quality.

Preferred qualifications and experience:

• Experience developing projects using MLIR and/or LLVM.
• Understanding of advanced compiler optimization techniques.
• Familiarity and experience with automatic differentiation methods and frameworks (e.g., Autograd, Torch, TensorFlow, JAX).
• Education or training in quantum computing (such as work experience, coursework, thesis, or peer-reviewed publications).
• Experience developing toolkits, compilers, or runtime environments for heterogeneous architectures.