Head of Research Software & Integrations (Spain)
Oxford Quantum Circuits · Barcelona
Head of Research Software & Integrations (Spain)
At OQC, we aren’t just theorising about the future; we’re building it. Born from a philosophy of bold innovation, we’ve successfully transitioned quantum computing from an academic dream into a commercial reality. The most exciting thing is that we’re just getting started and we’ve recently closed our £260 million Series C funding round – the largest fundraise ever completed by a quantum computing company in Europe.
The Purpose
As Head of Research Software & Integrations, you'll build and lead the software capability in Spain that enables OQC's next generation of quantum technology. You'll bring together research software, logical compilation, HPC and systems integration to accelerate scientific discovery—giving our researchers the high-quality software and computational capabilities they need to move from ideas to results, faster.
The Role
Based in Spain and reporting to our Director of Software Engineering, you'll lead the Research Software Engineering, Logical Compilation and Systems Integrations teams. This is a hands-on technical leadership role: you'll set direction, shape architecture and make critical engineering decisions while building and developing the teams that deliver against OQC's research ambitions.
You'll work closely with Research leadership and the wider Software organisation, balancing the speed and flexibility required for experimentation with the engineering discipline needed as software matures towards reliable production use.
What You'll Be Working On
- Lead and grow OQC's Research Software Engineering, Logical Compilation and Systems Integrations teams in Spain, setting clear priorities and accountability for delivery.
- Set technical direction and actively shape software and tooling architectures, ensuring local decisions align with OQC's wider engineering standards and technology strategy.
- Partner with Research teams to turn complex and ambiguous scientific challenges into effective software capabilities that accelerate experimentation and technology discovery.
- Lead research software and simulation tooling from early concepts through to production use, creating extensible solutions that can evolve rapidly alongside our research.
- Develop integrations between OQC's quantum computing stack, HPC environments, third-party systems and relevant community tools to enable sophisticated computational workflows.
- Work across Platform Engineering, Compiler Development, Data Management and Research to manage dependencies, prioritise demand and focus resources on the highest-value technical outcomes.
- Build a high-performing software organisation in Spain, developing technical leaders, shaping recruitment and team structures, and representing OQC through external technical and research collaborations.
What We're Looking For
- Significant experience leading software engineering teams delivering complex technical capabilities within research, scientific or similarly sophisticated R&D environments.
- A track record of taking research software from early experimentation through to reliable production use.
- Strong software architecture and engineering leadership, with the technical depth to actively contribute to architecture and tooling decisions.
- Experience leading multidisciplinary software teams or technical workstreams with accountability for priorities, delivery and technical outcomes.
- Proven ability to build strong partnerships between software engineers and research or scientific stakeholders.
- Excellent judgement when balancing rapid experimentation with software quality, reliability, maintainability and longer-term business needs.
- Strong technical planning, prioritisation and stakeholder management skills, including translating ambiguous research requirements into deliverable outcomes.
- Proven people leadership, with experience developing engineers and technical leads and creating increasing ownership within teams.
- Experience delivering successfully against critical deadlines and working across organisational boundaries to solve complex technical problems.
- A degree in Computer Science, Physics, Quantum Technologies, Mathematics, Engineering or another relevant numerate discipline, or equivalent practical experience demonstrating significant technical depth in research software development.
The 'Nice-to-Haves'
- Experience with high-performance computing and computationally intensive research workflows.
- Knowledge of compiler technologies, simulation tooling and their role within complex computing stacks.
- Experience integrating specialist, open-source or community-developed tooling into broader software platforms.
- Experience within quantum computing, deep tech or another highly technical emerging field.
- Experience with numerical analysis, data science, databases, CI/CD or microservice development.
- Experience scaling a technical team or capability during significant organisational growth.
- Experience contributing to external research collaborations, technical communities or conferences.
- A postgraduate degree (MSc, PhD or equivalent) in a relevant scientific, engineering or computing discipline, or significant equivalent experience applying advanced software engineering in complex research environments.
Why Join OQC
You will join a world-class team at the forefront of the next computational era. We offer a culture of bold innovation, the chance to work with unique lab infrastructure, and the opportunity to see your work redefine the limits of computation.
Learn more about our benefits and positive work culture here: https://oqc.tech/company/careers-at-oqc/
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