Atom Computing

Come join us and help us build a quantum computer using trapped neutral atoms and lasers! There are three primary technical groups at Atom Computing, with a good deal of cross-talk: Quantum Engineering, Control Systems/Firmware Engineering, and Software Engineering. The Quantum Engineering group consists of scientists and engineers with a strong background in atomic physics, optics, and laser physics, and they work primarily on the design and implementation of robust atom trapping and coherent control protocols. The Control Systems/Firmware Engineering group focuses on the hardware that drives those protocols, with a lot of work done in Verilog and C++. The Software Engineering group designs and develops the software that brings it all together. We work primarily with Python 3.7+ and Julia, and manage our development with Gitlab and a standard merge request workflow. We are definitely not Agile zealots, but we do have a two-week sprint cadence that we are currently managing using Asana.

We are building a full-stack software control system for a quantum computer. Hardware and FPGA designers inhabit the levels of the stack closest to the devices that control the laser and imaging systems. Firmware engineers develop Linux kernel drivers for hardware elements, as well as bare-metal micro-controller code. At the higher levels of the stack, we are simultaneously building an automated atom trapping calibration and gate calibration pipeline, as well as a series of tools for designing and compiling quantum circuits in an in-house quantum gate DSL. As the system matures, tool development that enables both internal users and customers to execute quantum algorithms on the apparatus are becoming increasingly important.