Staff Design Quality Engineer - NPI

About this role

About IonQ:

IonQ, Inc . [NYSE: IONQ] is the world’s leading quantum platform and merchant supplier - delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers, the IonQ Tempo, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems that have been helping customers and partners including Amazon Web Services, and AstraZeneca achieve 20x performance results and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance .

Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, IonQ has operations in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Our quantum computing services are available through all major cloud providers, while we also meet the needs of networking and sensing customers across land, sea, air, and space. IonQ is making quantum platforms more accessible and impactful than ever before.

Location: This role will work onsite at our office located in Bothell, WA. Travel: Up to 10%, domestic. Job ID: 1730

The Role:

We are looking for a Design Quality Engineer to join our Manufacturing & Operations team. As a Design Quality Engineer, you’ll be part of a cross-functional team 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 will be responsible for introducing and maturing IonQ’s design quality discipline — building on an active NPI process already in motion and bringing structured quality methods, design standards, and cross-functional partnerships that make our hardware easier to build, validate, and scale. IonQ’s engineering and manufacturing teams work closely together through a concurrent engineering model; the ideal candidate thrives in that kind of collaborative environment, earns influence through technical credibility rather than gatekeeping, and is energized by getting upstream of problems rather than reacting to them.

Responsibilities :

• Own holistic Design for Manufacturability and Assembly (DFM/DFA) reviews across the full system, spanning all subsystems, to identify cross-cutting design quality risks, recurring failure patterns, and systemic issues before they propagate into build.

• Drive and ensure adoption and implementation of design standards within Engineering, including GD&T drawing conventions, fastener standards, component design libraries, and interface standards.

• Lead active standardization initiatives already underway, including collimator consolidation, fastener standards, and CAD configuration standards, in close partnership with the System CAD Configurator and Engineering Operations.

• Introduce structured quality planning into IonQ’s NPI programs — defining which design quality deliverables (DFMEA, DVP&R, key characteristics, measurement plans) belong at each E/V/P build stage, and working with NPI teams to weave them into the existing program rhythm without adding friction.

• Review Design Verification and Validation plans and reports (DVP&R) in step with IonQ’s iterative build cycles; work with engineering to ensure V&V plans are drafted ahead of E builds and matured through validation.

• Review engineering drawings and CAD models for correct, complete, and unambiguous GD&T per ASME Y14.5; perform and review tolerance stack-up analyses to confirm assemblies will fit and function across tolerance ranges.

• Participate in and help refine IonQ’s change control process as a quality reviewer — evaluating design changes for V&V impact and configuration consistency across E, V, and P system baselines, and flagging when a change warrants re-verification before the next build.

• Lead structured root-cause and corrective/preventive action for design-related failures from build, test, or the field; verify effectiveness before closure and feed lessons learned back into design rules, checklists, and documentation.

• Support PPAP and first-article inspection (AS9102) activities at the NPI-to-production transition; coordinate prototype and pilot build quality feedback back into the design to improve first-pass yield on future builds.

• Define, track, and report design quality metrics (DFMEA AP burn-down, V&V completion rate, design-review action closure, first-pass yield at prototype/pilot) and use data to drive continuous improvement of methods, templates, and standard work.

• Help establish IonQ’s design-control documentation practices in a way that reflects good engineering discipline and that positions the organization for future quality certifications.

• Mentor engineers in design quality methods and serve as the organization’s technical authority on design controls, risk methods, and GD&T standards; raise the design quality capability of the broader team over time.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, systems, manufacturing, or a related engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

• 5+ years of quality, design, or reliability engineering experience in a precision hardware environment, such as semiconductor, aerospace, defense, advanced instrumentation, or medical devices.

• Demonstrated experience facilitating Design FMEAs (AIAG-VDA or equivalent) and leading structured root-cause and corrective action investigations through to verified closure.

• Strong GD&T proficiency per ASME Y14.5 and hands-on experience with tolerance stack-up analysis; comfortable reviewing, interpreting, and redlining engineering drawings and CAD models.

• Experience developing and reviewing Design Verification and Validation plans (DVP&R).

• Working knowledge of a design controls QMS framework, such as ISO 9001 Clause 8.3, with the ability to apply its requirements to a fast-moving hardware development environment.

Similar jobs

• Staff NPI Manufacturing Engineer — Agilityrobotics · Onsite- Salem, OR
• Staff Mechanical Engineer (NPI) — Whoop · Boston, MA
• Staff Design Engineer — Render · Remote
• Staff Design Engineer — Mixpanel · San Francisco, US (Remote)
• Senior Staff Quality Engineer, Manufacturing — Silananotechnologies · Alameda, CA
• Staff NPI Test Engineer — Aurorainnovation · Mountain View, California
• Staff Product Design Engineer — Samsara · San Francisco - SF9
• Staff Product Design Engineer — Oura · Hybrid - San Francisco, California