Engineering Chief of Staff

We are looking for a Senior Director to act as Chief of Staff to the VP of Engineering. As the Engineering Chief of Staff, you’ll be part of a cross-disciplinary team of product and technical program managers, software engineers, testers, scientists, and engineers whose mission is to lead IonQ on its journey to build the world’s best quantum computers to solve the world’s most complex problems. 

In this role, you’ll be a strategic partner to the VP of Engineering, working closely with all of the engineering leaders and cross-company divisions to define technical direction, manage team operations, coordinate proposal responses, and ensure timely delivery and engineering excellence. This role reports into the VP of Engineering.

Responsibilities: 

• Serve as a central point of communication, coordination, and information flow for the engineering organization
• Work directly with both the executive and engineering leadership teams, providing strategic counsel and helping to drive key company priorities and objectives, acting as proxy for the VP of Engineering 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
• Lead and coordinate engineering responses to government and commercial solicitations 
• Monitor and guide prioritization across the engineering organization
• Own business execution of the engineering organization, including annual planning, budgeting, OKR development, milestones and schedules, all hands, QBR preparation, etc.
• Collaborate with engineering staff to ensure systems and processes are adding value, remove obstacles that prevent the team from doing their best work
• Build relationships, influence outcomes, and drive delivery

You’d be a good fit with: 

• 15 years of program management experience combined with some form of business process engineering
• Bachelors or Master’s degree in an engineering or related field; MBA/MS or equivalent operating experience
• 5+ years of in a high-growth technology organization
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills
• 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, WBS structures, and program management best practices; Experience in both Agile and Waterfall development environments
• 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

You’d be a great fit with: 

• Exceptional leadership and management skills, with the ability to develop and communicate a vision that inspires and motivates staff and aligns with business strategy
• Demonstrated experience in government solicitations and contracts for the DoD or DoE; including working with capture teams; developing technical, cost, and management volumes; and working across the organization to coordinate and shape responses
• 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
• Knowledge of trapped ion quantum computing systems