Director, Datacenter System Architecture
PsiQuantum · Palo Alto, United States · 16d ago
PsiQuantum's mission is to build the first useful quantum computers: machines capable of delivering the breakthroughs the field has long promised. Since our founding in 2016, our singular focus has been to build and deploy million-qubit, fault-tolerant quantum systems.
Quantum computers harness the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that even the most advanced supercomputers or AI systems will never reach. Their impact will span energy, pharmaceuticals, finance, agriculture, transportation, materials, and other foundational industries.
Our architecture and approach is based on silicon photonics. By leveraging the advanced semiconductor manufacturing industry, including partners like GlobalFoundries, we use the same high-volume processes that already produce billions of chips for telecom and consumer electronics. Photonics offers natural advantages for scale: photons don't feel heat, are immune to electromagnetic interference, and integrate with existing cryogenic cooling and standard fiber-optic infrastructure.
That approach has since been tested at the highest level of scrutiny the U.S. government applies to emerging technology, and it has held up. In 2025, PsiQuantum closed a $1 billion funding round that valued the company at $7 billion. In 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce signed a $100 million Letter of Intent under the CHIPS and Science Act, followed by a $125 million agreement with DARPA under Stage C of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, PsiQuantum's most valuable U.S. government agreement to date. This year, we also broke ground on our utility-scale quantum computer in Brisbane, Australia, and continued building out our Chicago site. Victor Peng, our CEO, and co-founder Jeremy O'Brien, now Executive Chairman, lead a team and board that reflects how seriously the world is taking this build, joined this year by Intel's Lip-Bu Tan and Atomico's Niklas Zennström.
PsiQuantum also develops the algorithms and software needed to make these systems commercially valuable. Our application, software, and industry teams work directly with leading Fortune 500 companies, including Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Mercedes-Benz, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Mitsubishi Chemical, to prepare quantum solutions for real-world impact.
Quantum computing is not an extension of classical computing. It represents a fundamental shift, and a path to mastering challenges that cannot be solved any other way. The potential is enormous, and we now have the funding, the government validation, and the sites under construction to make it real.
Job Summary:
The Director, Platform & System will define the strategy for delivering a complete, integrated product that combines PsiQuantum’s photonic engine with partner-built systems and components. This role will own the system-level requirements, architecture, delivery model, and cross-subsystem trade-offs required to bring the product from specification through prototype and production. The Director will establish system specifications across form factor, rack design, connectivity, power, thermal performance, monitoring, redundancy, and serviceability, while defining the control and management interface for customer orchestration. This individual will also lead collaboration with OEM, ODM, joint venture, strategic, manufacturing, and test partners to ensure the system is designed for manufacturability, testability, and successful deployment.
Responsibilities:
- Own the system requirements spec: radix, form factor, rack height, connector type and count, faceplate, power, thermal, monitoring, redundancy.
- Define the delivery strategy: what we build, what partners build, and how the product comes together.
- Own the thermal and power budget as a constraint on the architecture, not an outcome of it.
- Define the control and management interface strategy for the customer's orchestration layer.
- Identify, evaluate and work with partners — OEM, ODM, JV and strategic — across the system.
- Arbitrate cross-subsystem trades and hold the line when a local optimization costs the system.
- Work with partners, manufacturing and test on DFM and test access from the start, not at the end.
Experience/Qualifications:
- 10+ years hardware systems engineering; 3+ directing system architecture for a rack-mounted networking or datacenter product that shipped.
- Direct command of datacenter hardware constraints: rack unit budgets, airflow, power delivery, front-panel density, serviceability, environmental standards.
- Took a system from specification through prototype and a partner or contract-manufacturer build.
- Familiar with datacenter cabling and the realities of high-density front-panel port counts.
- Writes specifications engineering teams can actually build against.
PsiQuantum provides equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. PsiQuantum does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable laws.
Note: PsiQuantum will only reach out to you using an official PsiQuantum email address and will never ask you for bank account information as part of the interview process. Please report any suspicious activity to recruiting@psiquantum.com.
We are not accepting unsolicited resumes from employment agencies.
Base pay is one part of the total compensation package. Full-time roles are eligible for equity and benefits. Our compensation ranges reflect the cost of labor across multiple U.S. geographic markets, and we pay based on defined geographic zones. This position may be filled within one of the following U.S. geographic zones, each with its own salary range.
Actual compensation may vary outside of these ranges and is dependent on various factors including, but not limited to, a candidate's qualifications, relevant education and training, competencies, experience, geographic location, business needs, and internal equity. Your recruiter can share more details about the salary range applicable to your location during the hiring process.
- Zone 1 - Bay Area and NYC
- Zone 2 - Examples include Los Angeles and Washington DC
- Zone 3 - Examples include Austin, Chicago, and Sacramento
- Zone 4 - Examples include Nashville and Phoenix/Tempe and many remote locations
This position includes the following benefits: competitive health coverage for you and your dependents, 401(k) with company match, equity grants, access to financial wellness tools and planning resources, wellness benefits, family support programs, life and disability insurance, paid leave programs, company-designated paid holidays, discretionary time off (DTO), and an end-of-year company shutdown. Some of these benefits have eligibility requirements and may vary based on location, role, or employment status. Many of these benefits are subsidized or fully paid for by the company.
The estimated annual base salary range for this role is: