Test and Inspection Engineer

Role Overview

Role:

IonQ is building the packaging and test capability behind the next generations of trapped ion quantum computers. Inspection of ion trap chips is already demanding on current devices, and it gets considerably harder as the critical area of each chip grows by orders of magnitude. The next device generation arrives in the middle of next year, and our inspection process has to be ready for it.

This role owns automated optical inspection from end to end, from the equipment itself through to the data and the reporting that comes out of it. You will take a process that is currently manual, slow and not yet catching everything we need it to catch, and turn it into something repeatable that scales. It is a high ownership role in the QPU Production team in College Park, Maryland, and it exists because this problem now deserves its own engineer.

Responsibilities:

You will own our automated optical inspection capability for ion trap chips and packaged Quantum Processing Units, both before and after packaging. That covers the equipment itself, the inspection recipes that detect and classify micron scale defects across electrical and optical features, the calibration and maintenance that keep results consistent, and the training and procedures that let operators and engineers run the tool and get the same answer.

Alongside the inspection, you will build the systems that capture, store and report test and inspection data. That means defining how data flows from the tools into a central record, producing certificates of conformance for trap chips and QPUs, and establishing traceability so that every device has a complete and retrievable test and imaging history to support yield analysis and root cause work. You will have real freedom over how results are captured and reported, working with the science, photonics and CMOS teams on what we are inspecting for and why.

Key responsibilities include:

• Own the automated optical inspection platform, from installation and programming through to qualification, calibration and uptime.
• Develop inspection recipes that reliably detect and classify micron scale defects.
• Build automated capture, storage and reporting of trap chip and QPU test data.
• Produce certificates of conformance that are repeatable and auditable.
• Work with equipment vendors on selection, acceptance and troubleshooting.

Requirements:

We are looking for someone who has owned, programmed or deployed automated inspection, machine vision or optical metrology equipment in a laboratory or a manufacturing setting, and who is comfortable writing the code that sits around it. You will not be reviewing images one at a time, because the point of the role is to make that unnecessary. A degree in engineering, physics, optics, materials science or a related technical field is a good route in, as is equivalent hands on experience. Wafer level inspection is much closer to this work than surface mount inspection.

Disposition matters as much as the background. This capability is being built rather than maintained, so we need someone who will ask the science team why a specification is written the way it is, and who is content to work through a problem nobody has fully defined yet. If you have strong inspection and automation experience and the curiosity to pick up the data and reporting side, we would rather hear from you than not.

You’d be a great fit with:

• Three or more years with automated inspection, machine vision or optical metrology.
• Strong Python or similar, applied to instrument control, image processing or data automation.
• Experience organising technical data, for example databases, pipelines or automated reporting.
• A semiconductor, advanced packaging, photonics or MEMS background, ideally with some materials characterisation.
• Comfortable working hands on in a cleanroom or laboratory environment.

This role is based at our College Park office in Maryland, with a minimum of three days on site each week.