Extreme-Scale, Nano & Fundamental Engineering
/Senior leadership
Principal Quantum Scientist
The division's scientific direction, and the hardest modelling problems it holds.
Compensation
Engagement
Full-Time
Permanent role. Full-time commitment. This is an on-site role at Kolkata. It is not remote and not hybrid.
Scope of role
Set direction within your domain. Build and mentor a team. Own outcomes at the function level.
Research classification
Computing quantities that cannot be obtained in closed form, from established physics. Reproducible calculations, convergence and error budgets, released code and datasets.
Computational research. Computed from established physics. A computed number is a prediction, and it is only as good as its convergence, its error budget, and whatever data it can be checked against.
Scale range 10^-12 m to 10^-8 m
Quantum devices are real, and their present capabilities are narrow. A simulated circuit is not a device; an algorithm with an asymptotic advantage is not an advantage at any size that has been run. Every result from this division states the qubit count, the noise model and the classical baseline it was compared against, and any claim of quantum advantage that omits the classical baseline is treated as unsupported. Scientific integrity is a condition of every role in this department. Assumptions are stated separately from conclusions. Uncertainty is reported. Negative and inconclusive results are written up, not discarded. Speculative work is labelled speculative, including when that makes it less impressive. Fabrication, falsification, and presenting a simulation as a measurement end an engagement here.
Scale bands are a research classification, not a claim of experimental reach. Most of this span cannot be probed by any apparatus that exists: nothing below about 10^-19 m has been measured directly, and anything at 10^26 m or beyond is inferred from observation rather than engineered. Every opportunity states the kind of work it actually is.
01 — The role
Why this role exists at EduRankAI
Department of Extreme-Scale, Nano & Fundamental Engineering, Division D03: Quantum, Atomic & Precision Systems. This division builds and simulates quantum models, develops algorithms, models devices, and analyses quantum measurements. It benchmarks honestly against classical methods, and it does not describe a simulated device as a built one. This position: The division's scientific direction, and the hardest modelling problems it holds. Scale range for this work: 10^-12 m to 10^-8 m. Research classification: Computational. Computing quantities that cannot be obtained in closed form, from established physics. Evidential standing: Computational research. Computed from established physics. A computed number is a prediction, and it is only as good as its convergence, its error budget, and whatever data it can be checked against. Quantum devices are real, and their present capabilities are narrow. A simulated circuit is not a device; an algorithm with an asymptotic advantage is not an advantage at any size that has been run. Every result from this division states the qubit count, the noise model and the classical baseline it was compared against, and any claim of quantum advantage that omits the classical baseline is treated as unsupported. Scale bands are a research classification, not a claim of experimental reach. Most of this span cannot be probed by any apparatus that exists: nothing below about 10^-19 m has been measured directly, and anything at 10^26 m or beyond is inferred from observation rather than engineered. Every opportunity states the kind of work it actually is. Level 7 (Principal). Technical direction across divisions, and the hardest open problems the department holds.
02 — The work
What you will own
- 01 Build and simulate quantum models of the systems the division studies.
- 02 Develop and analyse quantum algorithms, including their resource requirements at realistic sizes.
- 03 Model devices, including the noise that determines what they can actually do.
- 04 Analyse quantum measurement data, with tomography and its error bars.
- 05 Benchmark every quantum method against a competent classical baseline and report both.
- 06 Support experimental collaborators with modelling where an apparatus exists.
- 07 Take on the hardest open problems the department holds, including the ones that may not resolve.
- 08 Set the technical standard that other people's work is measured against, and defend it.
- 09 Represent the department's scientific position accurately outside it.
03 — The expertise
What we look for
04 — The bar
Who thrives here
- → Education: Doctorate or an equivalent research record.
- → Experience: 10 or more years, with results that changed how a technical area is approached.
- → Scope of the role: Technical direction across divisions, and the hardest open problems the department holds.
- → Must have: Can write the state of a two-qubit system, apply a gate to it, and compute a measurement probability by hand. Also: Comfortable with Hermitian operators, eigendecomposition, tensor products and partial trace.
- → Portfolio: at least one piece of work — code, a written result, a thesis chapter, a preprint — that somebody outside your institution can read and assess. It does not need to be published.
Terms of Engagement
How working time works at this level
No counted hours. A five-day week with a four-hour overlap window, plus responsibility for the coverage of your area — including who is on call and when.
Type
Lead
Working days
5 per week
Rest days
2 per week
Hours counted
No
Daily overlap
4h
Measured by
The outcomes of the area you lead, the reliability of its coverage, and the growth of the people in it.
Where this stands legally
Hours are not counted at this level. The statutory ceiling of 9 hours a day and 48 a week remains the limit the role is designed to fit inside: if the work cannot be done within a normal week, the scope is wrong, not the person.
The full per-level model is published at Working Hours by Level.
05 — Hiring process
What to expect after you apply
- 01
Application review
Every application is read personally within five business days. We respond either way.
- 02
Take-home or live exercise
Role-specific. Time-boxed. Real problems we are actually working on, not invented puzzles.
- 03
Conversations
Deep technical and values conversations with the team you would join. No trick questions. No panel ambushes.
- 04
Offer or honest no
If yes: digital offer letter, signed in-portal, transparent terms. If no: written feedback if you want it.
The standard
What you deliver, and how it is judged
Deliverables
- Simulation code with the noise model, the qubit count and the run seed recorded.
- Algorithm analyses stating the resource cost at a size that has actually been run.
- A classical baseline reported alongside every quantum result.
- Measurement analyses with confidence intervals, not point estimates.
Evaluation criteria
- Whether the classical baseline is present and competent.
- Whether the noise model is stated and justified rather than assumed away.
- Reproducibility of the simulation from a clean environment.
- Precision about hardware versus simulation in every written claim.
Preferred, not required
Nothing in this list is a bar to applying.
Tools you would work in
Reports to: Department Director
Works with: D04, D05, D06, D07, D08
Before you start
What we will collect. What it costs. What we will not do with it.
We will collect
- Name, email, phone — Account + application updates. No marketing.
- Resume / portfolio link — Human review of your work.
- Date + place of birth — Identity verification only.
- Your written responses — Selection rubric. Read by humans.
- Government ID (later) — Anti-fraud at offer / interview stage. Not at signup.
We will never
- Sell your data
- Share with third-party recruiters
- Use for advertising
- Train models on it
- Send marketing email
Our situation
EduRankAI is a small, independent organization building long-term capabilities in educational intelligence, advanced AI systems, and research infrastructure. We take no advertiser money, no donations with strings attached, and no investor pressure on hiring decisions. Applying is free, and every application is read by a human — recruitment, technical, academic and leadership teams. It buys us the right to be honest.
Ready to apply?
We read every application personally. If you are the right person for this role — regardless of pedigree, background, or where you are based — you will hear back from us within five business days.
Apply through this page. You will be asked for your education, your experience, and links to work we can actually read — a repository, a write-up, a thesis chapter, a preprint. Send the piece of work you would defend, not the one with the best title. If a result in it turned out to be wrong, say so; we would rather read that than not know. Every application is read by a person. We assess applications on evidence of the work. We do not filter on institution, on age, on gender, on caste, on religion, on disability, or on where you are from. If any part of this process is inaccessible to you, tell us and we will change it for you.
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