Comment by qnleigh

Yes that's still a great book, though it's starting to get a bit outdated.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 - ...