Cryogenic Control-Electronics Recovery Leader — Superconducting Quantum Systems

The mandate

The controls leader left after nominally identical superconducting-qubit devices produced divergent coherence and readout behaviour across dilution refrigerators. Teams repeatedly recalibrate around drifting cable loss, mixer leakage, magnetic environment and firmware timing, but cannot reproduce a successful experiment after a warm-up or channel reassignment. The interim leader must recover the entire control-and-readout chain without treating scarce qubit time as an unlimited diagnostic resource.

Nine months provide a fixed recovery window. The first six weeks establish fridge, line and instrument genealogy plus controlled reference measurements. Months two through five close thermalisation, attenuation, filtering, synchronisation and readout-chain mechanisms. Months six and seven prove portable calibrations across two fridges. The final two months appoint an operations leader, transfer supplier constraints and sustain experimental availability through a planned maintenance cycle.

Handover is achieved when reference devices reproduce agreed coherence, gate and readout distributions after two thermal cycles, calibration lifetime meets threshold, and experiment teams can move an approved channel set between fridges with bounded retuning. The successor must lead one cooldown-readiness review, reject an unstable signal path and explain residual noise sources. Cherry-picked overnight runs and undocumented expert adjustments are excluded from the success record.

The leader may quarantine instruments, approve wiring changes, allocate diagnostic fridge time, set calibration release rules, reassign control engineers and commit CHF 3 million within the recovery budget. They decide laboratory readiness for scheduled experiments after consulting device owners. Qubit architecture, scientific publication, new-building capital, employment of principal investigators and external research commitments remain with scientific and institutional governance.

Excluded are designing the next processor, promising fault-tolerant performance, owning research priorities or replacing every control platform. The mandate covers stable cryogenic delivery, microwave control, readout and reproducible operational calibration for existing systems. Attribution of device-fabrication weakness remains a joint evidence question; the interim cannot use controls authority to suppress contrary device findings.

Why this seat is open

Quantum experimental throughput depends on a long analogue chain whose small uncontrolled changes can masquerade as device physics. The departure removed the only executive able to arbitrate scarce fridge time and insist on configuration discipline across hardware and software. A temporary recovery leader can restore reproducibility while leaving scientific choices with researchers and durable operations with a trained successor.

What you will own

• Establish traceable genealogy for refrigerators, stages, cables, attenuators, filters, amplifiers, mixers, clocks, instruments and firmware revisions.
• Quantify thermal, microwave, magnetic, timing and readout contributions using reference devices and repeatable diagnostic sequences.
• Govern cooldown readiness through leak evidence, thermal anchoring, line continuity, shielding, instrument health and rollback plans.
• Stabilise pulse delivery and acquisition across channel calibration, mixer correction, clock distribution, trigger alignment and software configuration.
• Protect scarce experiment capacity by separating diagnostic windows, production queues, maintenance states and scientifically justified overrides.
• Prove calibration portability and lifetime after warm-up, component replacement, channel remap and controlled fridge-to-fridge transfer.
• Hand over reference traces, known noise sources, spares choices, supplier actions and successor-led readiness decisions.

Candidate qualifications

• Led cryogenic microwave control or quantum laboratory operations supporting superconducting devices at repeated experimental cadence.
• Can evidence a coherence or readout instability traced to the control chain rather than incorrectly assigned to the device.
• Understands dilution refrigeration, thermal anchoring, microwave components, low-noise amplification, clocks, mixers and calibration software.
• Has rationed scarce cryogenic capacity while preserving reproducibility, maintenance safety and scientific credibility.
• Integrated physicists, RF engineers, cryogenic specialists, firmware developers and facilities teams through evidence rather than hierarchy alone.
• Developed an operational successor able to reject unstable experiments despite pressure for publication or customer demonstrations.

Non-negotiables

• Will lead onsite in Zurich and attend every Basel and Delft technical review.
• Has personally commissioned and recovered multi-channel cryogenic control chains after a thermal cycle.
• Accepts no authority over scientific publication, processor architecture, institutional research strategy or investigator appointments.
• Will disclose quantum laboratory, instrument, refrigerator and microwave-component relationships before appointment.

1. 49 words maximum. Which apparent qubit defect ultimately originated in the cryogenic control or readout chain?
2. 49 words maximum. How would you prove calibration portability without consuming unlimited high-value experiment time?
3. 49 words maximum. What must a successor reject successfully before receiving laboratory-readiness authority?