On November 12, 2026, 506 quantum job listings on Quantum Careers included an annual salary range in US dollars. The median midpoint of those ranges was US$175,000. Mid-level roles had a median midpoint of US$155,000. Director and vice-president roles had a median midpoint of US$248,000. Every figure here comes from a range an employer published in its own listing, many of them in states whose laws require it.
These numbers describe salaries at a specific group of employers, mostly venture-backed and publicly listed quantum hardware companies hiring in the US. They give candidates a benchmark for comparing offers and give employers a reference for setting a range. They are not a survey of the whole quantum labor market, and the method section below explains where the sample is thin.
Where the numbers come from
On the snapshot date, Quantum Careers listed 1,137 open roles from 32 employers. We excluded nine general-interest and speculative-application postings that do not describe a specific role. Of the 1,137 roles, 569 published a salary range, and 524 of those were in US dollars. The medians use the 506 annual US ranges. Another 17 were hourly and are covered separately below, and one annual range was left out because its pay zone could not be identified from the listing’s location.
Five employers supplied two-thirds of the annual US ranges: Quantinuum (91), Monarch Quantum (71), PsiQuantum (69), IonQ (67), and QuEra Computing (43). Twelve other employers supplied the remaining 165. The medians below therefore reflect salaries at those five companies more than at the other twelve. The ranges are not all on the same basis. In 262 listings the text says the range is base salary, and 153 do not say. Quantinuum’s 91 ranges come from its own job pages, which describe some as base pay and say that, for incentive-eligible roles, the range includes the target bonus. Its listings on Quantum Careers do not show which is which. Equity, and any bonus outside those Quantinuum ranges, is not counted here.
For each listing we took the posted minimum and maximum, calculated the midpoint, and report medians across listings, rounded to the nearest US$500. A “median range” in the tables pairs the median of the posted minimums with the median of the posted maximums; it is not any single listing’s range. In 173 listings the employer entered the range in a structured salary field. In the other 333 we took it from the listing text, including three ranges an automated first pass missed, and spot-checked the results against the original postings. One employer posts a separate range for each of four geographic zones. For its roles in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York we used the Zone 1 range, which the employer applies to those locations. Its older listings give a general US band and a Bay Area band, and we used the band that matches the listing’s location.
Salary ranges by career level
| Career level | Listings | Median range | Median midpoint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-level | 196 | US$130,500–176,000 | US$155,000 |
| Senior | 147 | US$150,000–190,000 | US$170,000 |
| Lead or principal | 126 | US$174,500–225,000 | US$197,500 |
| Director or vice president | 34 | US$211,000–275,000 | US$248,000 |
Across these listings, the median midpoint for senior roles is US$15,000 above mid-level, and for lead roles US$27,500 above senior. The director and vice-president median midpoint is US$50,500 above lead. These are differences between groups of listings at one point in time. They do not predict the raise an individual will get on promotion. Only three executive listings posted a range, too few to report.
Career levels come from each listing’s title and description. Employers do not share one leveling system, so a “Senior” title at one company can map to a “Staff” or “Lead” title at another. Candidates should compare the work described as well as the title.
Salary ranges by role family
We grouped listings into role families by job title. The grouping is approximate. A title such as “Quantum Engineer” can cover calibration, device design, or systems work. Families with fewer than 12 annual ranges are left out.
| Role family | Listings | Median range | Median midpoint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Error correction and system architecture | 28 | US$175,000–240,000 | US$200,000 |
| Product, program, and project management | 30 | US$169,000–203,500 | US$189,000 |
| Software and infrastructure engineering | 68 | US$160,000–209,500 | US$186,500 |
| Sales, solutions, and customer engineering | 38 | US$165,000–211,000 | US$185,000 |
| Manufacturing, quality, and test engineering | 17 | US$152,000–200,000 | US$185,000 |
| Electrical, RF, and control electronics | 36 | US$164,500–208,500 | US$183,000 |
| Quantum engineering, calibration, and operations | 26 | US$155,500–205,000 | US$180,500 |
| Research scientists, physicists, and algorithms | 30 | US$149,000–208,500 | US$174,000 |
| Laser, optics, and photonics engineering | 87 | US$150,000–197,000 | US$171,000 |
| Fabrication and process engineering | 16 | US$147,000–188,500 | US$168,000 |
| Corporate functions | 55 | US$140,000–195,000 | US$165,000 |
| Mechanical, vacuum, and cryogenic engineering | 28 | US$140,000–177,000 | US$154,500 |
| Technicians and inspection | 15 | US$75,000–100,000 | US$87,500 |
Laser, optics, and photonics engineering is the largest family, with 87 annual ranges. Trapped-ion, neutral-atom, and photonic machines all depend on lasers and optical systems, which superconducting machines do not use for qubit control, and employers in those three modalities and their optics suppliers posted most of the ranges in the sample. Error correction and system architecture roles have the highest median midpoint, US$200,000, on a sample of 28. The group includes system and datacenter architects as well as error-correction specialists; the 19 ranges for error-correction roles alone have a median midpoint of US$187,500.
Technician and inspector salaries follow a different scale from engineering salaries, with a median midpoint of US$87,500. They assemble, test, and maintain hardware, and many of these roles do not require a degree. Our guide to quantum careers without a PhD covers how people move into them.
Software, hardware, and where the work is done
By technology area, quantum computing software and algorithms roles had a median midpoint of US$187,500 across 92 listings. Hardware roles came to US$177,500 across 189. Enabling-technology roles, which cover cryogenics, photonics, control electronics, and materials, came to US$162,500 across 121.
Listings tagged remote show the highest medians: US$206,000 for 42 remote listings and US$185,000 for 49 hybrid listings, against US$172,000 for 415 on-site listings. Workplace tags come from the employer’s listing, and some descriptions do not match their tag. In this sample, remote ranges are concentrated in sales and customer engineering and at senior levels: 15 of the 42 were in sales and customer engineering, and 37 were at senior level or above. NVIDIA posted 13 of the remote ranges; without them, the remote median midpoint is US$180,000.
The comparison mixes different roles and employers, so it does not show a remote premium for the same job.
Internships and hourly roles
Seventeen US listings posted hourly rates. Thirteen were internships from three employers, at rates between US$22 and US$94 an hour. Quantinuum posted 11 of them; its photonic integrated circuit and optical design internships had the highest rates, and its HR, IT, and support services internships the lowest. NVIDIA’s PhD research internship in quantum simulation posted the top rate. The board listed 71 internships in total on the snapshot date, most without a posted rate.
How to read a posted range
The median listing’s maximum was 33% above its minimum. For the middle half of listings, the gap ran from 21% to 46%. A posted range usually covers every candidate an employer would hire into that role, from the least to the most experienced. Level, experience, and location decide where an offer falls inside it.
Candidates should ask where the offer is placed within the range and what would raise it. Our guide to quantum compensation covers how employers set the number and what else is negotiable, including equity, publication rights, and research time.
Outside the US
Of the 382 listings tagged to European locations, 28 posted a salary range: 25 in pounds sterling for UK roles and three in euros. Riverlane posted 20 of them, so a UK median would mostly describe one employer. Asia-Pacific listings posted three ranges, all in Australian dollars, and 14 listings posted ranges in Canadian dollars, mostly for D-Wave Quantum roles in Burnaby. Several US states, including California, Colorado, New York, and Washington, require ranges in job postings. The EU’s Pay Transparency Directive gives candidates the right to know the starting salary or range before the interview, but most Member States had not written it into national law by the June 7, 2026 deadline. We will report European ranges once enough listings publish them to give a median.
Next update
We plan to repeat this snapshot every quarter with the same method and to report changes in posted salary ranges against this baseline. Changes between snapshots will partly reflect which employers and roles are listed, as well as changes in pay. Current listings with published ranges are on the Quantum Careers job board. The Quantum Talent Map covers which employers are hiring and why.
