Senior Staff Technical Program Manager - Compute Platform

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, powers customers and partners—including Amazon Web Services and AstraZeneca—to achieve 20× performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025 the company set a world record with 99.99% two‑qubit gate fidelity. Headquartered in College Park, MD, IonQ operates in multiple U.S. states and internationally.

Location: On‑site at our Bothell, WA; Boulder, CO; or College Park, MD office. Travel: As needed.

The Role

The Compute Platform turns quantum capability into quantum utility by building the APIs, cloud infrastructure, developer tools, and application layer that connect IonQ’s QPUs to users. As a Senior Staff Technical Program Manager you will lead cross‑functional programs across the application platform, developer tooling, and compiler stack, reporting directly to the VP of the department. You’ll own high‑visibility, high‑priority initiatives, interact with senior technical leadership, and coordinate roughly forty engineers across four engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Own end‑to‑end delivery of IonQ’s application platform, developer tools, and compiler roadmap across multiple cross‑functional development threads.
• Partner with engineering leadership to translate technical vision into incremental milestones, identifying risks and mitigations early.
• Build and run timelines, tracking, and reporting systems that teams actually use, leveraging cutting‑edge AI tools as force multipliers.
• Maintain honest systems of record by reconciling PRDs, trackers, and Jira, and automating drift detection.
• Make invisible work visible: on‑call burden, sustaining load, and technical debt tracked as rigorously as feature delivery.
• Dive into long‑pole problems; when a program stalls, work directly with the team in the weeds.
• Surface unresolved risks early, even if incomplete, to ensure timely communication.
• Manage dependencies across internal and external, technical and non‑technical teams.
• Write and present concise, data‑driven status updates to senior leadership.
• Help engineers turn off‑roadmap ideas into formal proposals for prioritization.

Requirements

• 8+ years managing technical programs and delivering against aggressive timelines.
• Proven ability to lead technical teams through genuine ambiguity.
• Experience with developer tools, SDKs, compilers, or adjacent platform software.
• Skill at turning diffuse problems into specific, minimal, assignable asks.
• Technical fluency to engage engineering leads on scoping, trade‑offs, and code review.
• Willingness to re‑baseline plans against reality and to communicate realistic targets.
• Experience building or automating reconciliation between planning documents and ticket systems, treating drift as a defect.
• Ability to move fluidly between fast‑cycle delivery and longer‑horizon program building.
• Use of AI as a core part of program management, including agent‑driven workflows.
• Experience in customer‑facing technical roles.
• Highly effective written and verbal communication.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience standing up program tracking and reporting infrastructure from scratch and designing team operating cadence.
• Customer‑facing technical experience.
• Capacity and staffing modeling from conflicting inputs, with discipline to label unknowns as unknown.
• Demonstrated ability to earn technical stakeholders’ trust through consistency and results.
• Enthusiasm for reading and writing PRDs and ERDs.
• Working knowledge of quantum computing (no quantum background required; training provided).

Pay

Base salary range: $180,000 – $270,000 USD, varying by education, qualifications, experience, location, and market data.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
• Matching 401(k) retirement plan
• Unlimited PTO and paid holidays
• Parental/adoption leave
• Legal insurance
• Home technology stipend