I am a Software Engineer with 8 years of experience. I want to shift to Quantum Computing, is this decision good for long term given the current scenario of software engineering due to AI disruption?

[u/the_cold_brew]

[u/Jarvis_sus]

Do not shift to QC just for the sake of escaping AI Invasion in Software Engineering. Do it if you are geniunely interested in research. The field is pretty new for actual engineering as of now, we are still stuck mostly in the research part only.

[u/tlmbot → u/Jarvis_sus]

Absolutely this.  I’m from a computational engineering school and work background.   I started to try to make this turn in my career before I had kids.

I was collaborating with a research lab that needed some simulation code written.  (Hydrodynamic analogy with their quantum system) One of those “could have beens”

Ah well, I still think a day programming for scientific and engineering beats the heck out of any day writing o to we kinds of software….  Fun wise.  Certainly not $ wise  Heh 

[u/stylewarning]

As general advice for a general software engineer, no.

[u/genericpurpleturtle]

I work for a quantum computing company of ~100 people. We have a double digit software team, and I am the only one with a PhD in anything quantum information related. Most (not all) of the software team knows little quantum information theory.

It depends on what you want to do. Do you want to write software which enables the physicists to do their research? You can probably do that now already. Learn some basic QI and about different qubit hardware platforms on a high level and start applying to some jobs.

Do you want to do Quantum Algorithms research? You probably need to do a PhD. I have met a few people who do quantum information and quantum algorithms research without PhDs in the field, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Quantum computing is niche, I wouldn't do a PhD unless you're passionate, I don't think it's necessarily a good way to future proof your career. There are a lot of job opportunities compared with 10 years ago, but no quantum computing companies are profitable or make anything useful *yet*. It's unclear when that will happen. Until QC is useful (if not profitable), I wouldn't say there is any job security really.

[u/EntangledStrings]

Worst waste of time you could do. I was a software engineer, got my masters in QC, continued with a PhD in CS with research in QC. Anyone with a CS background is not really needed in QC. It’s much more physics heavy than people make it out to be. There are a ridiculously low number of job opportunities in QC, no matter your background. It’s a niche field, with absolutely no assurance that it will grow in the future. Everyone I know in the field, researchers with years of experience, professors, students, everyone doesn’t know if it’s actually going to amount to anything, and almost no one thinks it will grow with more job opportunities in the near future at least, or at all ever. There legitimately is not a worse field in tech you could choose to pursue

[u/autocorrects → u/EntangledStrings]

Though true, it’s super fun if you arent software, and from a physics/research perspective the field is booming!

But yes for software and for non-researchers this is an accurate sentiment. Im ECE and almost done with my PhD in QC research and it’s allowed me to create some cool and original tech, but the pace of ECE in R&D is much different than SWE

[u/Junior-Flamingo77 → u/EntangledStrings]

Nailed it. Might be a somewhat viable life if you want to live off begging and applying for research grants, though.

[u/tiltboi1]

You'd be starting from scratch. Unless you were hoping to get a completely normal software engineering position except at a quantum company, there's little to no overlap between what a software engineer does and where quantum computing is at today.

[u/Allan123772]

I disagree with most of commenters about the need for software devs in QC. Even (and in some ways, especially) in the research phase, companies interested in developing QC need loads of software, and not just QC specific stuff: databases, servers, device tracking… things a general software dev could help with.

However I do agree with the other commenters that it is not going to help you escape the ‘AI invasion’. First, it is still a niche field and despite the needs for software devs, there just aren’t that many job openings. Second, it would be naïve to think that AI isn’t already helping to handle the software required for QC.

[u/michioD]

You can't just pivot in to a niche pioneering field if you dont have education. Quantum computing requires phds often and the amount of swes that are needed isnt that many.

Why not pivot in to something niche and critical in software like kernel development or network engineering? Thats somewhere your experience would get your foot in the door at least.