Research DevOps Engineer

About the Role

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Center for Quantum Computing (CQC) is a multi-disciplinary team on a mission to develop a fault-tolerant quantum computer. We are looking to hire a Research DevOps Engineer to join our growing software team. You will work closely with our experimental and theoretical physics teams to enable their work characterizing, calibrating, and operating novel quantum devices. The ideal candidate will be able to translate high-level science requirements into DevOps deliverables (e.g., CI/CD scripts, hybrid infrastructure-as-code setups, standardized development environments, artifact repositories, etc.) that are performant, scalable, and secure. This role requires someone who has a strong desire to work within a team of scientists and engineers and demonstrates ownership in initiating and driving projects to completion. As a Research DevOps Engineer, this role has a particular emphasis on accelerating the research software development lifecycle at the AWS Center for Quantum Computing through automation, standardization, and managing hybrid (cloud + physical lab) infrastructure.

Why AWS?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating, which is why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services. AWS Utility Computing (UC) provides product innovations from foundational services to consistently released new product innovations. As a member of the UC organization, you’ll support the development and management of Compute, Database, Storage, Internet of Things (IoT), Platform, and Productivity Apps services in AWS. Within AWS UC, Amazon Dedicated Cloud (ADC) roles engage with AWS customers who require specialized security solutions for their cloud services.

Inclusive Team Culture

Here at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.

Diverse Experiences

AWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.

Mentorship & Career Growth

We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

Work/Life Balance

We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Design and maintain standardized, reproducible development environments for research scientists.
• Own dependency, build, and release management across interdependent research software projects.
• Develop and streamline CI/CD pipelines for low-overhead automated testing and rapid deployment.
• Manage hybrid infrastructure spanning cloud services and on-prem physical hardware.
• Automate provisioning and configuration using infrastructure-as-code solutions (e.g., Docker, AWS CDK).
• Maintain Amazon’s high security bar without slowing down the pace of internal development.
• Implement best practices for observability and monitoring to enable rapid debugging and high service uptime.
• Empower others to actively contribute to the codebase through mentorship and documentation.

We are looking for candidates with strong engineering principles, a bias for action, superior problem-solving, and excellent communication skills. Working effectively within a team environment is essential. As a Research DevOps Engineer embedded in a research organization, you will have the opportunity to work on new ideas and stay abreast of the field of experimental quantum computation.

A Day in the Life

The majority of your time will be spent on projects that accelerate the development of our internal research software stack. This requires working backwards from the needs of our science staff in the context of our larger experimental roadmap. You will translate science and software requirements into design proposals balancing implementation complexity against time-to-delivery. Once a design proposal has been reviewed and accepted, you’ll drive implementation and coordinate with internal stakeholders to ensure a smooth roll out. Because many high-level experimental goals have cross-cutting requirements, you’ll often work closely with other engineers or scientists on the team.

About the Team

You will be joining the software team within the AWS Center of Quantum Computing. Our team is comprised of scientists and engineers who are building scalable software that enables quantum computing technologies.

Basic Qualifications

• 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience.
• Experience programming with at least one modern language such as Python, Ruby, Golang, Java, C++, C#, Rust.
• Experience with Linux/Unix.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines build processes.
• Experience with using infrastructure-as-code to design and deploy cloud services.
• Experience with the full software development lifecycle (planning, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with scientists in a research environment.
• Experience with DevSecOps features in GitLab Ultimate.
• Experience setting up standardized, reproducible Python environments.
• Experience with networking and network security fundamentals.

Key skills/competency

• DevOps
• CI/CD
• Automation
• Infrastructure-as-Code
• Cloud Computing
• Quantum Computing
• Linux/Unix
• Python
• Security
• Monitoring