Comment by ofjcihen
2 days ago
Thanks for this.
I’ve recently become very interested in QC and purchased and read Quantum Computation and quantum Information which I think is the standard book on the subject right now.
I’m even more interested in applying what I’ve learned but I’m at a loss as to how to begin working in the industry. Aside from getting a new masters degree I wouldn’t know where to begin and resources on the matter are understandably sparse.
Yes that's still a great book, though it's starting to get a bit outdated. Some recent developments that would belong in an updated edition:
- The section on error correction is still gold, but it doesn't cover "scalable codes" like the Surface Code (and other LDPC codes; lots of exciting progress there) - Superconducting Qubits: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.06560. - Rydberg Atoms: see Nature Papers from Misha Lukin's group on the subject - Photonic quanum computing
These might be hard to follow now, but if you make it through a good chunk of Nielsen and Chuang, then they might become quite readable. Make sure you solve lots of problems or it won't stick.
Like other commenters have pointed out, quantum computing companies need lots of software engineers, so that's a very viable entry into the field for many people. Here's an arbitrary list of some relevant skills: - Qutip! You can learn sooo much quantum mechanics by playing around in Qutip, and it's quite easy to use. - Rust or C++ (depending on the company?) - FPGA programming - Python (ofc) - Linear algebra - ...
You can definitely work at QC companies even without having a degree in the field. Many QC companies hire people from other fields because they require that expertise, say people with experience in numerical optimization. Of course, many QC companies also hire software engineers because they have complex internal software. If you are a software engineer, you can start there and then start to move laterally within the company.
Source: work at a QC company as a scientist.
That’s something I didn’t think about. Thank you
It's actually not that difficult to pick up quantum mechanics and quantum computing if you have a solid foundation in linear algebra. QC really just reduces down to "applied linear algebra on crack".
If you're in AI, you might be pleased to know that the probability distribution of a particle in its various energy states is related to the softmax of the negative values of those energies times temperature, which is where the concept of LLM "temperature" comes from. If you have linear algebra background, those energies are the eigenvalues of a Hamiltonian. Physics is actually quite beautiful.
Getting into industries is another issue though, it seems every company favors credentials over learning ability these days. If you haven't published 1500 papers on the subject you're automatically rejected.