Security Engineer

📋 Job Overview

At Q-CTRL, Quantum Computing Engineering is a global team of software engineers and infrastructure experts, combining deep technical expertise with a startup mindset to deliver real impact through software innovation. Our work is underpinned by robust standards, and by embracing the three virtues. Our team excels in areas across back-end, front-end, machine learning, and platform engineering. We transform Q-CTRL’s world-leading technological breakthroughs into commercial software products with applications across defense, research, and industry. We work closely with Product, Design, and Research teams to accelerate the path to quantum advantage worldwide.

🏢 About Q-CTRL

Q-CTRL is the global leader in AI-powered quantum control infrastructure software. We build the tools that make quantum technology useful, solving the hardest challenges in quantum computing and quantum sensing to deliver real-world impact. Founded in 2017, we operate globally with offices in Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Huntsville, Berlin, and Oxford. Our teams bring together technical and multi-disciplinary expertise across the product lifecycle, and we’re hiring talent to help scale every part of the business. We work quickly to turn cutting-edge science into deployable technology. In 2024 we raised US$113 million in Series B funding, the largest aggregate investment for a quantum software company. Six months later we delivered the first commercial quantum advantage with Ironstone Opal, our field-validated quantum navigation solution for defense and industry. At Q-CTRL, we prioritize outcomes over hours. We offer flexibility, equity potential, and competitive benefits that reflect our high-performance culture.

🎯 The Role

The Q-CTRL Infrastructure team is part of the backbone of our software platform and hardware initiatives. Guided by our vision to make the right way the easy way, our mission is to build reliable, secure and maintainable infrastructure that enables Q-CTRL to scale its revolutionary quantum technology. Q-CTRL faces a dynamic security landscape shaped by industry, customer and compliance requirements, which is now evolving in a post-Mythos era. The Infrastructure team is expanding to bring on a Senior Security Engineer with a focus on designing, implementing, and maintaining systems to fulfil the Q-CTRL Security Objectives, as well as identifying practical ways to leverage AI within our security engineering practices.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Reporting to the Engineering Manager for Infrastructure, you’ll play a hands-on role in ensuring we deliver the highest security standards for Q-CTRL products and maintain the trust our customers place in us.
• Strengthening the security of the Q-CTRL platform through contribution to key systems such as Kubernetes clusters, cloud networking, Zero Trust network architectures and firewalls.
• Consistently upholding compliance with security frameworks through the improvement of systems and processes. This includes access control mechanisms, data management and security guardrails.
• Applying knowledge in forensics and incident response to triage incidents and applying expertise to improve alerting.
• Refining and maturing our vulnerability management systems in order to improve key security metrics for Q-CTRL.
• Other duties within the Employee's skills and experience, or with reasonable training.

📌 Required Qualifications

• Previous experience in DevSecOps or DevOps with a dedicated security engineering focus.
• Cloud networking and Kubernetes experience, including knowledge of ZTNA and secure network access.
• Experience with firewall technologies, at both the cloud (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and application levels.
• Experience working with SIEM/SOC tooling such as Splunk or Microsoft Sentinel to identify and triage security alerts.

⭐ Desirable Experience

• Experience maintaining a vulnerability management system, including running threat modelling sessions and maintaining risk registers.
• Experience with Kubernetes runtime security tooling such as Falco or Sysdig.
• Relevant security or Kubernetes certifications, such as Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) or Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP).
• Experience with AI-assisted security scanning or penetration testing.
• Red teaming experience, particularly within cloud or AWS environments.
• Experience using open-source observability tooling such as OpenTelemetry and Grafana to set up security alerting and monitoring.
• Hands-on experience hardening Linux operating systems and container images.

🎁 Benefits

We offer flexibility, equity potential, and competitive benefits that reflect our high-performance culture.

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

At Q-CTRL, we prioritize outcomes over hours. We offer flexibility, equity potential, and competitive benefits that reflect our high-performance culture. If you’re ready to help shape the future of quantum, we’d love to hear from you!