Chief Computer Scientist 5 - Quantum Computing

Overview

At PNNL,our core capabilities are dividedamongmajor departments that werefer to as Directorates within the Lab,focused on a specific area of scientific research orother function, with its own leadership teamand dedicated budget.

Our Science & Technologydirectoratesinclude National Security,Integrated Discovery Sciences, and Energy  addition,we have an Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory,a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus.

The Integrated Discovery Sciences Directorate (IDSD) leads fundamental research across biology, chemistry, Earth and environmental sciences, materials science, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, mathematics, autonomy, and DOE national user facilities. Our vision is to accelerate scientific discovery by observing, understanding, simulating, predicting, and controlling dynamic biotic-abiotic processes and interactions within complex biological, chemical, material, and Earth systems. We intentionally connect disciplines to advance fundamental discovery science, develop transformative scientific capabilities, and address the nation's most important challenges in energy, environmental resilience, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, health, and national security.

The preferred work location for this position is in Richland, Washington but the team will consider a work location in Seattle, Washington as well as virtual applicants based on position requirements and organizational needs.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory seeks a Chief Scientist in Quantum Computing to provide senior scientific leadership in quantum computing architectures, compilation, large-scale simulation, and fault-tolerant scalability, supporting PNNL’s contributions to the Quantum Science Center (QSC) and PNNL’s Internal Research Investment QuAADS.

This position is focused on end-to-end, system-level research across the quantum computing stack and hybrid quantum HPC systems. The successful candidate will help align architectures, compilers, error models, simulation, and hybrid quantum–classical execution to determine how fault-tolerant quantum computing can be realized in practice for scientific workloads. A key responsibility of this role is guiding and extending PNNL’s existing quantum software and simulation capabilities, including large-scale, noise-aware simulation on leadership-class HPC systems.

This is a senior technical leadership role with substantial engagement in research, modeling, and software direction.

The Chief Scientist will provide scientific leadership in the design and evaluation of quantum computing architectures and fault-tolerant systems, with a focus on system-level feasibility and scalability. The role includes guiding and coordinating research across the full quantum computing stack, spanning architectures, compilers, quantum simulation, and hybrid quantum-classical execution models, and ensuring that these components are developed in a coordinated and technically consistent manner.

Focus areas for this role include research on large-scale, noise-aware quantum simulation, advancing and applying quantum modeling and simulation tools to study architectural scalability, compilation strategies, and fault-tolerance trade-offs under realistic physical and operational assumptions.

In addition, the Chief Scientist will coordinate and provide research leadership while collaborating closely with existing teams working on hybrid algorithms, scientific applications, and experimental validation efforts. The role includes publishing results in peer-reviewed venues, presenting findings in technical reviews and workshops, and contributing to the development of reusable research software and modeling tools. The Chief Scientist will also mentor senior staff, scientists, and postdoctoral researchers in research methods, technical rigor, and scientific communication, helping to sustain PNNL’s research excellence in quantum computing.

Minimum Qualifications:

• BS/BA and 9+ years of relevant experience
  -OR-
• MS/MA and 7+ years of relevant experience
  -OR-
• PhD with 5+ years of relevant…