Senior Systems and Network Engineer

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><p><strong>About IonQ:&nbsp;</strong><strong><br></strong></p> <p><u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2F&amp;esheet=54451094&amp;newsitemid=20260316477473&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=IonQ%2C+Inc&amp;index=7&amp;md5=0818ffbedc6dbad8c4d1611ac94c2a0f" target="_blank">IonQ, Inc</a></u>. [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 <u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-speeds-quantum-accelerated-drug-development-application-with&amp;esheet=54451094&amp;newsitemid=20260316477473&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Amazon+Web+Services%2C&amp;index=8&amp;md5=a7f94ee9b71a392dca3cd6c413722e51" target="_blank">Amazon Web Services, </a></u><u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-speeds-quantum-accelerated-drug-development-application-with&amp;esheet=54451094&amp;newsitemid=20260316477473&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=and&amp;index=9&amp;md5=2bed627b388878763f41ffe0e4edb16c" target="_blank">and </a></u><u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-speeds-quantum-accelerated-drug-development-application-with&amp;esheet=54451094&amp;newsitemid=20260316477473&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=AstraZeneca&amp;index=10&amp;md5=757c1f2c2ec94cf3982700106122164f" target="_blank">AstraZeneca</a></u> 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, <u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-achieves-landmark-result-setting-new-world-record-in-quantum-computing&amp;esheet=54451094&amp;newsitemid=20260316477473&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=setting+a+world+record+in+quantum+computing+performance&amp;index=11&amp;md5=32e9cb88afbd439026a352666cc72c91" target="_blank">setting a world record in quantum computing performance</a></u>.<br><br>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. &nbsp;</p></div><p><strong>Location:</strong> This role is based at our College Park, MD office, with the option to work a few days a week remotely.<br><strong>Travel:</strong> Up to 15%<strong><br>Job ID:</strong> 1741</p> <p><strong>The Role:</strong></p> <p>IonQ is building quantum computers at College Park, and the infrastructure underneath that work is a crucial component. A misconfigured VLAN or a failed provisioning job can stop a calibration run or delay a system build.</p> <p>We are looking for a Senior Systems and Network Engineer to own the classical infrastructure layer that directly supports quantum hardware builds and operation at our College Park site. This means provisioning the servers and system heads that control quantum hardware, building and maintaining the lab and datacenter networking those systems run on, and integrating the cameras, laser control systems, and other bespoke scientific hardware that make a quantum system work.</p> <p>This is lab-grade systems and network engineering: closer to research computing at a national facility than to corporate IT. You will spend your time with real hardware, real cabling, and real failure modes, and automation of infrastructure to help us continue to scale.</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>Provision Linux servers and system heads for quantum hardware builds, including PXE boot, OS installation, and automated configuration</li> <li>Build and maintain infrastructure-as-code for server and network provisioning (Ansible, Kickstart, Foreman, Packer, Terraform, or equivalent), so systems are reproducible rather than hand-tuned</li> <li>Design, configure, and troubleshoot networking for lab and datacenter environments: VLANs, managed switches, firewalls, and structured cabling</li> <li>Integrate non-standard scientific and lab hardware into the compute environment, including cameras, laser control systems, and custom device drivers</li> <li>Use IPMI/BMC and other out-of-band tooling to manage a growing fleet of servers without physical intervention on every failure</li> <li>Define and document handoff criteria for when a system is ready to pass to the teams running experiments on it</li> <li>Diagnose and resolve infrastructure issues that are actively blocking a hardware build or an experimental run, and treat that urgency accordingly</li> <li>Partner with software, DevOps, and hardware engineering teams to understand what a new system needs before it arrives</li> <li>Write runbooks and documentation so that provisioning knowledge lives in a repo, not in one person's head</li> </ul> <p><strong>Requirements:</strong></p> <ul> <li>6+ years of experience in systems, network, or infrastructure engineering, with real hands-on time provisioning servers, not just managing a team that did</li> <li>Hands-on experience configuring and troubleshooting switches, firewalls, routers, and on-prem servers in a production environment; this is not a design-and-delegate role</li> <li>Direct experience configuring VLANs and managed-switch environments, including diagnosing and resolving a network problem yourself, without esc