Back to jobs
New

Senior Staff Software Architect – Network Monitoring Platform

San Francisco, California, United States

About IonQ: 

IonQ, Inc. [NYSE: IONQ] is the world’s leading quantum platform and merchant supplier - delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers, the IonQ Tempo, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners including Amazon Web Services, and AstraZeneca achieve 20x performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance.

Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, IonQ has operations in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Our quantum computing services are available through all major cloud providers, while we also meet the needs of networking and sensing customers across land, sea, air, and space. IonQ is making quantum platforms more accessible and impactful than ever before.  

Location: This position can work onsite or hybrid from San Francisco Bay Area. 
Travel: Up to 15%, domestic or international.
Job ID: 1558

The Role: 

We are looking for a Senior Staff Software Architect to lead the design and evolution of our next-generation Network Monitoring Platform. You’ll be part of a cross-functional team whose mission is to lead IonQ on its journey to build the world’s best quantum computers to solve the world’s most complex problems.

In this role, you will own the end-to-end architecture of a high-scale, data-intensive network monitoring platform — from data modeling and ingestion pipelines to cloud-native deployment. You are a hands-on technical leader who writes production code, drives critical architectural decisions, and has deep experience building systems that monitor large fleets of devices at scale. The ideal candidate brings strong Go and/or Rust expertise and thrives at the intersection of systems engineering and distributed data platforms.

Responsibilities:

  • Architect cloud-native ingestion and processing pipelines capable of handling telemetry from hundreds of thousands of devices, leveraging streaming platforms and time-series storage at scale.
  • Define and own the platform’s unified YANG-based data model, spanning device configuration state, operational telemetry, and topology relationships across heterogeneous network environments, serving as the authoritative schema from which ingestion pipelines, storage structures, and API contracts are derived.
  • Write and review production-quality code in Go and/or Rust for performance-critical platform components including collectors, aggregators, and real-time processing engines.
  • Define and enforce data partitioning, sharding, and retention strategies to sustain high-volume device event streams while meeting latency and durability requirements.
  • Lead the design of cloud-native deployment patterns (Kubernetes, service mesh, autoscaling) to ensure the platform operates reliably at global scale across multi-cloud environments.
  • Evaluate and drive adoption of purpose-fit technologies — time-series databases, graph stores, stream processors — with a focus on operational scalability and long-term maintainability.
  • Partner with Product and Engineering to translate monitoring requirements into platform capabilities, ensuring architectural decisions are reflected in roadmap milestones and engineering specifications.
  • Mentor senior engineers through architecture reviews, coding standards, and hands-on technical guidance, raising the bar for platform quality and engineering practices.

Requirements:

  • 12+ years of experience in software or platform architecture, with at least 5 years leading architecture for large-scale, data-intensive distributed systems.
  • Substantial experience building and operating device monitoring systems at scale — with direct exposure to telemetry ingestion pipelines, fleet management, and real-time alerting across large device populations.
  • Proven hands-on coding ability; production experience with Go and/or Rust is strongly preferred for this role.
  • Deep expertise in data modeling for high-volume systems, including schema design, time-series storage (InfluxDB/Timescale), event streaming (Kafka/Kinesis), and graph data models for network topology.
  • Solid understanding of cloud-native application design — including containerization, Kubernetes orchestration, microservices, and cloud infrastructure across AWS, GCP, or Azure.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Proficiency in both Go and Rust, with a track record of shipping production services in at least one of these languages.
  • Background in network management platforms or network equipment vendors (e.g., Juniper, Cisco, Nokia), with familiarity with telemetry protocols such as gNMI, NETCONF, or SNMP.
  • Experience designing multi-tenant SaaS platforms where data isolation, schema evolution, and scalability across customer tiers are first-class concerns.
  • Contributions to open-source infrastructure or observability projects, or published technical writing on distributed systems and data engineering topics.
  • Familiarity with techniques relevant to high-throughput data collection.

The approximate base salary range for this position is $216,136 - $282,978. The total compensation package includes base, bonus, equity, and a range of benefit options found on our career site.

Compensation will vary based on individual factors such as education, qualifications, and experience of the final candidate(s), specific office location, and calibration against relevant market data and internal team equity.  Posted base salary figures are subject to change as new market data becomes available. Our benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, matching 401K, unlimited PTO and paid holidays, parental/adoption leave, legal insurance, and a home technology stipend.  Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided when a candidate receives an offer of employment. 

At IonQ, we believe in fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all while striving to identify and eliminate barriers. We empower employees to thrive by fostering a culture of autonomy, productivity, and respect. We are dedicated to creating an environment where individuals can feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued.
 
We are committed to equity and justice. We welcome different voices and viewpoints and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by law. We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer.

US Technical Jobs. The position you are applying for will require access to technology that is subject to U.S. export control and government contract restrictions.  Employment with IonQ is contingent on either verifying “U.S. Person” (e.g., U.S. citizen, U.S. national, U.S. permanent resident, or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum) status for export controls and government contracts work, obtaining any necessary license, and/or confirming the availability of a license exception under U.S. export controls.  Please note that in the absence of confirming you are a U.S. Person for export control and government contracts work purposes, IonQ may choose not to apply for a license or decline to use a license exception (if available) for you to access export-controlled technology that may require authorization, and similarly, you may not qualify for government contracts work that requires U.S. Persons, and IonQ may decline to proceed with your application on those bases alone.  Accordingly, we will have some additional questions regarding your immigration status that will be used for export control and compliance purposes, and the answers will be reviewed by compliance personnel to ensure compliance with federal law.  

US Non-Technical Jobs. Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum. Accordingly, we will have some additional questions regarding your immigration status that will be used for export control and compliance purposes, and the answers will be reviewed by compliance personnel to ensure compliance with federal law.

If you are interested in being a part of our team and mission, we encourage you to apply! 


 

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at IonQ? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Education

Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...

City, State

Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...


IonQ, Inc. (“IonQ”) conducts pre-employment background and risk screening checks in order to (i) comply with legal, regulatory, contractual, and security obligations; (ii) meet requirements imposed by governmental or law enforcement agencies; (iii) assess a candidate’s suitability, integrity, and risk profile for employment and access to sensitive information or projects and (iv) protect IonQ, its clients and partners.

This Background Check Disclosure and Consent should be read together with IonQ’s Applicant Privacy Notice: https://www.ionq.com/applicant-privacy, which provide additional details regarding how personal data is collected, used, retained, transferred, and protected. To the extent permitted by applicable law, pre-employment background and risk screening checks may include verification or assessment of your:

  • Identity 
  • Employment history
  • Education and professional qualifications
  • Sanctions, restricted-party, and watchlist screening
  • Adverse media and reputational risk analysis
  • Public-record and open-source intelligence
  • Criminal records, court records, or similar information only where lawfully accessible and permitted

Your personal data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside your country of residence, including the United States, Switzerland, and other jurisdictions where IonQ or its service providers operate. Where required, appropriate safeguards are implemented, including EU Standard Contractual Clauses, UK International Data Transfer Addendum, Swiss‑approved transfer mechanisms, and/or other legally recognized safeguards.

IonQ uses a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due-diligence screening. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Providing information for background checks is voluntary; however, failure to provide required information or consent may result in the inability to commence or continue employment.

By clicking “I Agree,” I acknowledge that I have read and understand this Background Check Disclosure and Consent, and I confirm that I have been provided access to IonQ’s Applicant Privacy Notice. I consent to pre-employment screening by IonQ through the third-party service provider, as described above, subject to applicable law.

 

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in IonQ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.