Quantum Systems Engineer

• You have diagnosed a hardware problem yourself. You can state the symptom, the root cause, and the number that changed once you fixed it. This is what we weigh most heavily.
• Hands-on lab experience, and at least one measurement you took yourself and would defend. Coursework, thesis work and internships count.
• Enough programming to control an instrument and analyze what comes back. Python, MATLAB or LabVIEW. This is not a software engineering role.
• A degree in physics, or in electrical, electronic, telecommunications or mechanical engineering, or equivalent hands-on experience.

Prior quantum experience is not required. Cryogenics, vacuum, superconducting devices, GHz measurement and S-parameters, grounding and shielding, LTspice, COMSOL, HFSS, AWR, QCoDeS, Qblox, Bluefors systems, mechanical CAD and thermal modeling are all things you can learn here. Spanish and Catalan are not required either.

If you meet points 1 and 4, apply, and tell us which of the others you cannot claim yet.

• Component, PCB or chip design from scratch
• Quantum algorithms, error correction or quantum software libraries
• A software, firmware or embedded development role
• A mainly theoretical or simulation role
• Remote work
• You own one setup end to end: you can bring up and validate one signal chain, or run one cooldown from start to finish, and colleagues trust your numbers without needing to repeat the work.
• You have identified and resolved one real problem on a live setup, and your write-up prevents the issue from recurring.
• You are ready to lead a deployment visit at a client premises.

Advantageous but not required, and all can be learned on the job:

• Cryogenics, vacuum and superconducting devices
• GHz measurement and S-parameters
• Grounding, shielding and board layout
• LTspice, COMSOL, HFSS or AWR
• QCoDeS, Qblox, Bluefors
• Mechanical CAD and thermal modelling
• ESD handling
• Spanish and Catalan

We are also interested to hear about something you chose to build, fix or measure on your own initiative.

• A technically demanding role with real scope from day one, you help define the system, you don't inherit a finished one.
• Direct collaboration with physicists, cryogenic engineers, PCB engineers and software developers.
• A small team where your decisions are visible and your influence is immediate.
• Competitive salary, discussed openly and based on experience.

🏥 Private health insurance

💳 Cobee flexible compensation (transportation, meals, and childcare support)

⏰ Flexible working hours

🏡 Hybrid work model

Systems and Engineering builds and maintains everything a superconducting quantum processor needs in order to run: dilution refrigerators, cryogenic and room-temperature wiring, RF and DC signal chains, control electronics, racks, instrumentation, and the Python layer that drives them. We build these systems for deployment at customer sites, not only for our own lab.

You would work at system and rack level. That means selecting and integrating components into a working chain, characterizing that chain, and diagnosing it when it misbehaves. It is not component, board or chip design. Because the processor is more sensitive than any instrument in the lab, a large part of the diagnostic work is tracing an anomalous qubit measurement back to its real cause in the wiring, the grounding or the thermal path.

Within about six months you would take ownership of one setup: its wiring, its cooldowns and its numbers.

What you would do

• Run cooldowns and warmups on dilution refrigerators, mount and change samples, and maintain vacuum, pulse tubes, compressors and helium lines, including leak checking.
• Install and thermalize coaxial and DC looms inside the fridge, and verify heat loads and thermal budgets against measured stage and qubit temperatures rather than datasheet figures.
• Build and characterize signal chains (bias tees, directional couplers, combiners, filters, HEMT and parametric amplifiers) on a network analyzer first, and then again under real pulse sequences.
• Investigate grounding and noise: measure a grounding topology before documenting it, and track down noise floors that shift when an instrument is connected.
• Integrate and validate the racks, control electronics and lab instrumentation that other teams depend on.
• Extend the Python that runs the lab: our instrument control library, the thermal calculator and the RF analysis tooling.
• Document each intervention well enough for a colleague to repeat it, and support deployments at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which means a few day trips a year.

We do not own qubit design, chip fabrication, quantum algorithms or the calibration libraries. Other teams here do those.

Everyone in the team travels and everyone debugs, but we hire into one of two focus areas:

• Electronics and instrumentation. Room-temperature RF and DC signal chains, bench characterization, grounding and noise, control electronics, racks, board and packaging support.
• Cryogenics, vacuum and thermal. Dilution refrigerators, cryogenic wiring and thermalization, heat loads and thermal budgets, vacuum and leak hunting, mechanical integration, site readiness.

Tell us in your application which of the two you would rather spend the next two years on. If you are genuinely undecided, say so and we will decide together based on your hands-on experience.

We're looking for an autonomous, results-oriented profile who thrives in dynamic environments. We value the ability to make sound decisions, take ownership of one's own work, and adapt with agility to the company's shifting priorities