Staff Quality Engineer

Alice & Bob is developing the first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer to solve the world’s hardest problems.

The quantum computer we envision building is based on a new kind of superconducting qubit: the Schrödinger cat qubit 🐈‍⬛ . In comparison to other superconducting platforms, cat qubits have the astonishing ability to implement quantum error correction autonomously!

We're a diverse team of 250+ brilliant minds from over 35 countries united by a single goal: to revolutionise computing with a practical fault-tolerant quantum machine. Are you ready to take on unprecedented challenges and contribute to revolutionising technology? Join us, and let's shape the future of quantum computing together!

About the Mission

Alice & Bob is moving from research prototypes to a product: a quantum system delivered with its full software stack, under contractual acceptance, availability and non-regression commitments. Our first customer installation is planned for 2027, and the evidence that the system works as users expect is what makes that delivery possible.

About the Role As Staff Quality Engineer, you will establish quality engineering as a discipline for our firmware production lane and bring the user’s point of view into how the system is verified. You will own the end-to-end test suites that exercise the system the way users do, and the test evidence behind customer acceptance and periodic non-regression. You will report to the team’s manager and work hands-on with developers, customer project teams, account managers and the hardware platform teams, acting as the quality reference through influence rather than authority.

Responsibilities

• Own acceptance and non-regression evidence for the delivered quantum system: complete and harden the acceptance test suite for the first customer delivery, run in-house dry runs before each software delivery, and produce test reports for provisional acceptance, service verification and periodic non-regression, in the customer’s format

• Maintain requirements-to-test traceability for contractual commitments, and contribute the test and verification sections of the Quality Assurance Plan

• Turn this work into a repeatable acceptance framework for future deliveries, customers and sites

• Build system-level test automation: end-to-end and API tests on the job execution stack (submission, lifecycle, results, errors, quotas) across simulator, emulated and real-hardware backends, plus end-to-end tests on our web interfaces

• Run hardware-in-the-loop tests on our in-house systems, and build shared test tooling (fixtures, environments, test data, flaky-test management, CI integration)

• Make the system-level suites usable as release gates, complementing the developers’ own tests

• Set quality standards for the firmware production lane: release criteria, merge and release gates that apply whether the code is written by a human or an AI agent, and the bug lifecycle for customer systems (intake, triage, severity scale)

• Make quality visible through metrics (escaped defects, flakiness, time-to-detect), and coach developers across teams on testing practices and testability, especially in a context of AI-assisted development

• Bring the quality and verifiability perspective into department-level initiatives and design reviews, and turn specifications into acceptance criteria with the product owner before implementation

Requirements

• 8+ years in software engineering, including 4+ years focused on test automation or quality engineering with a cross-team or organisation-wide remit

• Strong Python, and the ability to read and contribute to production code, not only test code

• Proven experience building automated test suites from scratch for APIs and distributed systems (API/contract, integration, end-to-end) and integrating them as CI gates (GitLab CI or equivalent)

• Experience producing formal test evidence and reports for external customers (acceptance, service verification, non-regression), with rigor and traceability

• Experience testing systems with a hardware or physical component (hardware-in-the-loop, instruments, embedded or lab systems)

• A track record of setting quality standards across several teams and getting them adopted through influence, not authority

• Master’s degree or engineering school (Bac+5) in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience

• Proficient English and excellent written and verbal communication; professional proficiency in French strongly preferred, as our first customer site works in French

Nice to have :

• Web end-to-end testing (Playwright or equivalent)

• Observability and non-functional testing (monitoring and alerting verification, load and stability testing)

• Familiarity with AI-assisted development and the testing challenges it raises

• Interest in quantum computing, and the ability to reason about circuit results and benchmark metrics

• Experience on a product delivered to external customers under contractual quality commitments

Recruitment Process

• Screening call with Doriane (30 min)

• Hiring Manager Interview (60 min)

• Technical Interview with the Team (60 min)

• Leadership Interview (30 min)

• Fit Interview (30 min)

Benefits:

• Our success is your success: own it with our BSPCE plan

• Direct IP Compensation: Earn substantial bonuses for driving the core patents that define our quantum architecture.

• Flexible remote policy, up to 40 % a month

• A P arental plan including additional benefits such as crèche support or additional days-off to take care of under 12 years old children

• Subsidized membership with Urban Sports Club

• Mental health support with moka.care

• 25-day vacation policy (as per French law) + RTT

• Half of transportation cost coverage (as per French law), or yearly allowance for the die-hard bicycle users

• Competitive health coverage, with Alan.

• Meal vouchers with Swile, as well as access to a fully equipped and regularly stocked kitchen

• French language courses covered by the company for those interested

Research shows that women might feel hesitant to apply for this job if they don't match 100% of the job requirements listed. This list is a guide, and we'd love to receive your application even if you think you're only a partial match. We are looking to build teams that innovate, not just tick boxes on a job spec.

You will join of one of the most innovative startups in France at an early stage, to be part of a passionate and friendly team on its mission to build the first universal quantum computer!

We love to share and learn from one another, so you will be certain to innovate, develop new ideas, and have the space to grow.