Chief of Staff, R&D

We are looking for a Chief of Staff to report to our VP of Research and Development. In this role, you’ll be a strategic partner, working closely with internal R&D stakeholders and cross-company divisions to manage team operations, R&D purchases, coordinate proposal responses, and ensure timely delivery and engineering excellence.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a central point of communication, coordination, and information flow for the R&D organization and partner with IonQ organizations

• Work directly with both the executive and R&D leadership teams, providing strategic counsel and helping to drive key company priorities and objectives, acting as proxy for the VP of R&D when relevant

• Solve complex problems using both business and technical knowledge

• Help cultivate a positive culture

• Lead key strategic projects as they emerge

• Synthesize complex technical information and strategic insights into clear summaries of considerations, enabling well-informed decision making throughout the organization

• Ensure executive involvement in decisions takes place in a timely fashion, when input and authority are most needed

• Monitor and guide prioritization across the R&D organization

• Own business execution of the R&D organization, including annual planning, budgeting, OKR development, milestones and schedules, all hands, QBR preparation, etc.

• Collaborate with R&D staff to ensure systems and processes are adding value, and remove obstacles that prevent the team from doing their best work

• Build relationships, influence outcomes, and drive delivery

Qualifications

• 7+ years of program management experience combined with some form of business process engineering

• 5+ years of purchase planning experience combined with some form of business process engineering

• Bachelors degree in business/engineering or related field

• 5+ years of in a high-growth technology organization

• Outstanding written and oral communication skills

• Fluent in program management tools like Confluence or equivalent and procurement process.

• Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills, with the interpersonal capability to ensure solutions are adopted and implemented

• Experience driving projects from conception to completion

• High level of comfort working with senior hardware & software engineers, scientists & physicists, and product managers

• Experience in technical program management including schedules, program management best practices;

• Passion for building scalable processes in a high growth, constantly changing environment

• Ability to earn trust, maintain positive and professional relationships, and contribute to a culture of inclusion

• Ability to travel to multiple sites and locations occasionally

• Proven experience working with both software and hardware teams to develop first-of-a-kind systems and products