Principal Distributed Systems Engineer

<div class="content-intro"><p><strong>About IonQ: </strong><strong><br></strong></p> <p><u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2F&esheet=54451094&newsitemid=20260316477473&lan=en-US&anchor=IonQ%2C+Inc&index=7&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&url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-speeds-quantum-accelerated-drug-development-application-with&esheet=54451094&newsitemid=20260316477473&lan=en-US&anchor=Amazon+Web+Services%2C&index=8&md5=a7f94ee9b71a392dca3cd6c413722e51" target="_blank">Amazon Web Services, </a></u><u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-speeds-quantum-accelerated-drug-development-application-with&esheet=54451094&newsitemid=20260316477473&lan=en-US&anchor=and&index=9&md5=2bed627b388878763f41ffe0e4edb16c" target="_blank">and </a></u><u><a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-speeds-quantum-accelerated-drug-development-application-with&esheet=54451094&newsitemid=20260316477473&lan=en-US&anchor=AstraZeneca&index=10&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&url=https%3A%2F%2Fionq.com%2Fnews%2Fionq-achieves-landmark-result-setting-new-world-record-in-quantum-computing&esheet=54451094&newsitemid=20260316477473&lan=en-US&anchor=setting+a+world+record+in+quantum+computing+performance&index=11&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.  </p></div><p><strong>Location:</strong> This role is based onsite at our office in Santa Clara, CA.<br><strong>Travel:</strong> Up to 15%, domestic or international.<strong><br>Job ID:</strong> 1923 </p> <p><strong>The Role: <br></strong></p> <p>We are looking for a Principal Distributed Systems Engineer to join the team building IonQ's Network and Security Platform. As a Principal Distributed Systems Engineer, you'll be part of a cross-functional team whose mission is to lead IonQ on its journey to build the world's best quantum computers to solve the world's most complex problems — and to secure the world's networks against quantum threats.</p> <p>In this role, you will be responsible for setting the technical direction and end-to-end architecture of the platform's distributed backend — the ingestion pipelines, event streaming and telemetry processing, time-series and data storage layers, and APIs that give operators real-time visibility into their networks and the intelligence to make them quantum-safe. You will remain hands-on: building reference implementations and proofs of concept, reviewing critical designs and code, and turning architecture decisions into production-grade systems alongside Staff and Senior engineers.</p> <p>The ideal candidate is a hands-on architect and natural technical leader who has designed and scaled multi-tenant, data-intensive distributed platforms, can align technology choices with business outcomes, and is energized by making complex infrastructure simple, observable, secure, and dependable.</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities</strong>:</p> <p>Platform Architecture & Technical Direction</p> <ul> <li>Define and own the multi-year architecture and technical roadmap for the platform's distributed backend, measured by delivery against roadmap milestones and platform availability, scalability, and cost targets.</li> <li>Lead architecture reviews and author the design standards, reference architectures, and decision records that guide how the platform — and IonQ's broader engineering organization — approaches distributed systems and data infrastructure problems.</li> <li>Identify systemic reliability, scalability, security, or architectural gaps across the platform and drive cross-team initiatives to resolve them.</li> <li>Partner with product, security, and engineering leadership to translate business requirements into architecture decisions, clear engineering specifications, and sequenced delivery plans.</li> </ul> <p>Distributed Data & Streaming Systems</p> <ul> <li>Architect high-throughput ingestion and telemetry pipelines that reliably collect data from large network device fleets (e.g., gNMI/gR