New Year, new career?

--1ListenShare2022 was a tough year for big tech with thousands of redundancies announced in the last couple of months and billions wiped off company valuations.But the field of quantum computing bucked this trend, ramping up its search for talent and continuing to attract substantial investment.At Universal Quantum, for example, we recently won the biggest single government contract for quantum computing, worth €67 million over the next four years. And the wider quantum computing industry is predicted to generate $850 billion of value in the next 15 to 30 years.But there’s a problem. For quantum computing to realise its full potential, the industry needs to address its skills shortage.“Governments and businesses are funneling tens of billions of dollars into quantum computing, and yet progress in the industry will remain elusive unless the industry can recruit the people to make that happen,” writes Owen Hughes for ZDNet.But with thousands of tech professionals now out of work — could the classical and quantum worlds help each other out, with quantum computing companies providing redundant tech workers with a new career direction?It seems like a natural solution — but there are still a lot of misconceptions surrounding the work done in a quantum computing start-up that could stop candidates from considering a career in quantum computing.“We don’t need strange, mysterious quantum physicists all across the board,” our co-founder and chief scientist Prof Winfried Hensinger told Hughes in the same ZDNet report.In fact, many of the roles we’re currently recruiting for don’t require a background in quantum at all. We’re currently hunting for all manner of skills, from circuit chip designers to field programmable gate array (FPGA) engineers, marketing and operations professionals, to software developers who fancy the challenge of writing entirely new code for a unique platform.Of course, some roles require experience in quantum computing. But this is also where traditional tech professionals could upskill. A strong background in mathematics and physics or programming and algorithms is useful to help you get to grips with quantum computing — but not essential.Teaching someone quantum mechanics is the easy bit (just don’t tell our quantum physicists that!). What we’re looking for is stuff you can’t teach — a growth mindset and individuals who match our company values.Building the future of computing is hard. There’s no getting around that fact — but that doesn’t mean your work needs to consume your life. Far from it.

At Universal Quantum, we have always had a focus on well-being and a work/life balance.You can see that in everything from our benefits package to our company values. We provide a flexible holiday allowance with no set limit, providing you with as much paid leave as you need to feel rested, well, and fulfilled. We also offer a comprehensive parental support package, flexible working, 10% pension matching, health insurance, and stock options.That’s not all. We also reflect this commitment to well-being in one of our values to “embrace entanglement”:“We share our successes and failures, challenges and concerns, fears and ambitions to support and elevate one another.We always make time for each other, work empathetically and help every individual to be successful. Trust, respect, and care are integral to our culture. As a team, we are entangled.”Another great aspect about working in a start-up (currently 30+ people but growing fast!) is that you can expand your skill set and get the opportunity to work on what you’re passionate about.There’s a lot of hard work to do — but we’re working together to build the next generation of computing.There’s a lot of hype and scaremongering around quantum computing. But no one knows what the future of quantum computing holds — including us.Let’s take a minute to reflect on what we do know.

At Universal Quantum, we have received a record-breaking €67 million contract to build our technology in the next four years. We also won an Institute of Physics award for a “great business idea founded on a physics invention, with the potential for business growth and significant societal impact.” And our £7.5m consortium work with Rolls-Royce is just one of many quantum computing investments in the last 12 months where work is being done to unlock early quantum use cases.The quantum computing market is rapidly evolving, and things are changing fast. But the signs from our end and the wider industry are massively positive.For quantum computers to do anything useful for society, then they need to get bigger. Much bigger. Today’s machines are of the order of hundreds of quantum bits (qubits).Research from one of our quantum architects, Dr. Mark Webber, recently revealed we need millions of qubits to unlock useful use cases, such as breaking the encryption of Bitcoin and simulating the molecule responsible for biological nitrogen fixation.We’re working hard to rise to the million-qubit challenge — it’s been our core focus from day one. Our machines are designed in a different way to other quantum computers, using a unique architecture that overcomes many of the issues others may face as they start to scale.We’re not there yet. And we’re not the only quantum computing company that wants to reach the million-qubit scale. But we do believe that our architecture is the one that will get there.Of course, we’re biased!But when you start to reach out to quantum computing companies there’s one question to always ask: “are you really focused on one million qubits?”.Because a long-term, “million-qubit” mindset is required to realise the true potential and usefulness of quantum computers.At Universal Quantum, we are working on the most incredible technical challenges of our age.While there have been many exciting developments and breakthroughs recently, there’s still a lot of work to do — and we’re constantly on the lookout for exceptional candidates in a wide range of areas.If you’d like to help us transform the future of computing, check out our careers page or email leap@universalquantum.com.