R&D Manager - Software

Job Description

Job Title: R&D Manager - Software. Location: Cambridge, UK

Responsibilities:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of software engineers, including setting expectations and supporting career development.
• Define and deliver the team's technical roadmap with software leadership and senior individual contributors.
• Allocate team capacity, track progress, and manage priorities, risks, dependencies, and cross-team handoffs.
• Provide technical leadership across the programming language, compiler, and developer-tooling stack;
• Guide software through the complete development lifecycle, from research and prototyping to tested, documented, and production-ready releases.
• Make and communicate architectural decisions focused on scalability, maintainability, testing, and documentation.
• Collaborate with research, applications, product, hardware, and software teams across the UK and US.
• Ensure the software stack supports Quantinuum's quantum processors and priority use cases.
• Recruit, onboard, and retain excellent engineers while continuously improving engineering and delivery practices.
• Travel occasionally to Quantinuum's US sites.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Physics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• At least five years of combined relevant experience in software engineering, compiler development, programming-language development, or closely related technical R&D. Relevant postgraduate research, including Master's and PhD study, may count toward this requirement;
• Demonstrated leadership of technical projects or teams, including shaping technical direction, mentoring engineers, and coordinating delivery.
• Experience making and communicating architectural decisions for production software.
• Strong planning and communication skills with the ability to collaborate across technical disciplines.

Preferred:

• Experience developing quantum software, particularly quantum programming languages, compilers, intermediate representations, runtime systems, or execution tooling.
• Understanding of quantum programming models, hardware-software co-design, and the interaction between classical and quantum computation.
• Direct experience designing or implementing programming languages, type systems, compiler passes, or intermediate representations.
• Experience developing production-quality software in Rust or Python.
• Previous experience as a line manager or team lead, including coaching, recruiting, onboarding, and supporting engineers' career development.
• Experience leading or collaborating with geographically distributed technical teams.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining open-source software and working with developer communities.
• A track record of turning research ideas and prototypes into software used by customers or engineering teams.

Benefits And Compensation:

• Highly competitive compensation package.
• Equity.
• 28 days of paid holiday in addition to public holidays.
• Workplace pension.
• Flexible working approach.
• Enhanced parental and adoption benefits.
• Opportunity to work alongside leading professionals in the quantum computing industry.

Other Information:

• The role is based in the Cambridge office with an expectation of working on-site some days each week.
• Prior quantum-computing experience is valued but is not required.
• Strong software-engineering experience and demonstrated leadership are essential.
• Employment is subject to successful pre-employment screening checks;
• Quantinuum is an inclusive equal opportunity employer.
• AI tools may be used during parts of the hiring process, including reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, assessing responses, and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals. These tools support the recruitment team but do not replace human judgment, and final hiring decisions are made by humans.