Senior Technical Product Manager – Quantum Control Platform

Location: Boston, MA (On-site)

About Us

We are building quantum computing systems that push the boundary of what is physically possible. Doing so requires a rare combination of scientific depth, engineering rigor, and operational maturity.

Our Quantum Control Platform sits at the heart of this effort, translating physics breakthroughs into executable engineering across hardware, software, optics, embedded systems, and automation. As we scale, we are looking for a Senior Technical Product Manager to serve as the operational backbone between our quantum physics research team and our multi-disciplinary engineering organization.

This is not a traditional software product role. You will operate at the intersection of complex hardware development and modern agile delivery, making them work together in a physics-constrained environment.

The Role

Requirements Translation & Traceability

You will work directly with quantum physicists to extract scientific intent — goals such as enabling a logical non-Clifford gate, achieving specific QPU-level performance milestones, or meeting target fidelity thresholds — and translate them into structured, executable engineering requirements.

You will:

• Build full traceable requirement hierarchies from top-level physics goals down to subsystem specifications
• Cover domains including control electronics, embedded systems, optics, calibration workflows, and automation
• Define clear acceptance criteria and validation plans at every level
• Ensure no critical requirement lives informally in someone’s head

Your work will create clarity where complexity currently dominates.

 

 

Documentation Discipline & Governance

You will own and elevate the requirements process, not just participate in it.

This includes:

• Defining standardized requirement templates
• Establishing definition-of-ready and definition-of-done criteria
• Implementing milestone readiness frameworks
• Institutionalizing documentation governance within Jira and Confluence
• Ensuring proper decomposition, traceability, ownership, and auditability

You will introduce structure without bureaucracy — building systems that accelerate execution rather than slow it down.

Agile Delivery Partnership

Engineering owns delivery. You will be their strongest product partner.

You will:

• Structure requirements so they are consumable by agile hardware and software teams
• Decompose physics goals into Jira epics and stories while preserving validation rigor
• Participate fluently in sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospectives
• Operate effectively in hybrid delivery environments where hardware constraints meet agile cadence

You understand where agile breaks in hardware environments — and how to adapt it without becoming dogmatic or reverting to rigid sequential processes.

Stakeholder Alignment & Process Maturity

You will align scientists, hardware engineers, and software engineers around shared execution frameworks.

This role requires:

• Translating between research language and engineering execution models in real time
• Surfacing unstated assumptions in scientific requirements
• Challenging habits constructively
• Raising the overall maturity of technical product management across the organization

You lead through credibility and demonstrated value — not mandate.

What We’re Looking For

• 8–15+ years of experience in technical product management within deep-tech, hardware-centric, multi-disciplinary environments
• Background in industries where precision and traceability are non-negotiable, such as:

o               Photonics and optical systems (e.g., Coherent, Lumentum, II-VI)

o               Lidar and sensing (e.g., Luminar, Ouster)

o               Defense and aerospace with photonics or directed energy programs

o               Scientific instrumentation (e.g., Thorlabs, Newport)

o               Semiconductor capital equipment (e.g., ASML, Applied Materials)

o               Fusion energy, advanced aerospace, or modern defense companies (e.g., SpaceX, Anduril, Joby)

You have:

• Personally built requirements governance frameworks, not just operated within them
• Demonstrated end-to-end requirement traceability from high-level goals to subsystem specifications
• Defined acceptance criteria and validation plans across complex systems
• Deep fluency in Jira and Confluence
• Experience with dedicated requirements management tools such as Jama or Aha
• Strong technical grounding in physics, electrica