As a joint initiative between the Netherland’s Quantum Application Lab (QAL) and IBM QuantumWe, there is available a three-year postdoctoral research position. You will be employed by and your main research environments will be the QuSoft research center (housed by CWI) and the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory where you will be able to interact and collaborate with IBM Quantum Researchers.
Are you a highly motivated post-doctoral researcher with excellent skills for exploring applications of quantum computing? Then you could be the candidate we are looking for.
What are you going to do?
You will be conducting research aimed at understanding and demonstrating potential Quantum Advantage by improving near term algorithms, such as VQE for chemistry and material science, QAOA for optimization, or other heuristic algorithms that run on near term computers. You will address questions such as
- How do we bring these algorithms to the next level, i.e., improve their performance and increase the complexity of considered problem instances?
- Under what conditions, or set of assumptions, and for which applications do certain algorithms offer a Quantum Advantage?
- What are the right metrics to measure such a Quantum Advantage? Can we bring in other metrics other than speed. For example, by looking at the quality or accuracy of the output compared with classical approaches (even if the quantum algorithm runs longer than classical but still in polynomial time)?
- Can we develop a tool that can predict or guide which techniques will work on certain applications?
- How can we run experiments on IBM Quantum systems, simulators and other QAL resources to validate the performance of potential solutions? How can we handle the hardware noise and scale to relevant problem sizes?
What do we require?
The successful candidate should have
- a completed PhD in computer science, math or (computational or theoretical) physics,
- experience with and affinity for quantum computing,
- Knowledge of Qiskit and IBM Quantum systems (Preferred)
- strong motivation for a cross-disciplinary environment at the interface of an academic and an industrial environment.
Our offer
We offer a temporary employment contract for 38 hours per week for a period of 12 months with a extension of another 24 months depending on a positive assessment. The preferred starting date is as soon as possible
The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and dependent on relevant experience, ranges between € 2,960 to € 4,670 (scale 10). This does not include 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% year-end allowance. The function profile ‘researcher’ is applicable. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. The Collective Labour Agreement of Universities of the Netherlands is applicable.
Besides the salary and a vibrant and challenging environment at Science Park we offer you multiple fringe benefits. Take a look here.
Any questions?
Do you have any questions or do you require additional information? Please contact:
- Prof. Kareljan Schoutens: c.j.m.schoutens@uva.nl; +31 20 525 5664
Job application
If you feel the profile fits you, and you are interested in the job, we look forward to receiving your application. We accept applications until and including 16 September 2022. You can find the original job posting and apply for the position here.
The interviews will be held in the course of late September 2022.
