Head - Quantum Sensing, Silicon Photonic, Quantum Physics
Job Role & Responsibilities
- Act as senior physicist and design authority for link security — from protocol assumptions and finite-key bounds to the parameters the hardware must meet.
- Own the optical physical layer across our discrete- and continuous-variable QKD systems, including free-space links.
- Define and validate the transmit and receive chains: sources, modulators, interferometers, detectors, timing and synchronisation.
- Develop and defend secure-key-rate models, finite-key security budgets, and the loss/error trade-offs that set everyone else’s specifications.
- Lead the optical metrology bench and a disciplined measurement-to-model validation practice.
- Lead implementation-security review of the physical layer and define the countermeasures.
- Set the scientific research agenda — new protocols, longer range, higher key rate — and represent QNu in publications, standards and technical reviews.
- Build and mentor the physics bench team and teach QKD security across the organisation.
Specific Expertise Required
- Quantum / optical physics foundation: a graduate-level command of quantum optics and electromagnetism. A PhD in quantum optics, quantum information, AMO or photonics with hands-on lab experience is the ideal background.
- QKD protocol physics: the ability to reason from security assumptions to key rate. Direct QKD experience is ideal; strong quantum-information or quantum-optics researchers ready to specialise are also encouraged.
- Security proofs: comfort with finite-key security arguments, entropic methods and min-entropy reasoning — or the mathematical maturity to master them quickly.
- Photonics & detection: lasers and interferometers, modulation and polarisation control, and single-photon or low-light detection with rigorous noise and timing budgeting.
- Experimental discipline: real lab credibility — building, characterising and trusting optical measurements, and tying them back to a model.
- Scientific leadership: a publication, patent and/or standards record and the credibility to be QNu’s external scientific voice.
Technical / Functional Skills
- Project management: running multi-workstream technical programs against government and commercial milestones; risk, dependency and schedule management; stage-gate / TRL-based delivery.
- Product management: turning customer and stakeholder needs into requirements and roadmaps, and balancing technical, cost and time-to-market trade-offs.
- People leadership: hiring, mentoring and growing a high-calibre team; setting goals and giving feedback; building a first-principles engineering culture.
- Stakeholder engagement: engaging government, academic and industry partners, and representing QNu in technical reviews and tenders.
- Communication: clear technical decks and documents for expert and non-expert audiences, and confident presenting to evaluators, customers and leadership.
- Funding & proposals: supporting grant, tender and funding submissions including technical write-ups and budget justification.
Why Join QNu Labs
- Build something that matters. You will lead work that defends national data and critical infrastructure against the quantum threat — not incremental features, but capability that did not exist before.
- International working environment. Collaborate across our Bengaluru headquarters and Austin and Sydney offices, with global foundries, academic groups and standards bodies. Your work is judged at the international frontier, not just locally.
- Assured patent track. A structured invention-disclosure and filing programme means your novel work is captured, protected and credited. Inventors are actively supported in building a personal patent portfolio.
- Publications & journals. We back you to publish in leading journals, present at conferences and shape standards — so you build a scientific reputation alongside your engineering career.
- Government & nationally critical projects. Work directly on strategic, nation-scale programmes with marquee government and defence stakeholders — high-trust, high-impact, and genuinely rare to access.
- Real ownership & a first-principles culture. You own your domain end to end, lead a high-calibre team, and work in a derivation-first culture that prizes understanding the physics, not just shipping the board.
- Grow as a leader. Shape a Centre of Excellence from the ground up, hire your own team, and step into a role with real strategic visibility and a clear path to grow with a fast-moving deep-tech company.
Ready to build the quantum-safe future?
We welcome candidates from across India and around the world, and from adjacent fields who are hungry to move into quantum. Apply with your CV and a short note on a hard technical problem you are proud of solving.
