Lead Full-Stack Engineer (US)

About Zapata Quantum

Zapata Quantum is shaping the future of quantum computing: setting the standards for what’s viable, valuable, and worth building. The Company powers quantum applications across cryptography, pharmaceuticals, finance, materials discovery, defense, and beyond, translating cutting-edge research into real-world impact.

Zapata is the only organization to have contributed across every technical area of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking program, giving it a uniquely comprehensive view of what it takes to make quantum computing work in practice. Now restructured and sharply focused, Zapata Quantum stands alone as the only publicly traded, pure-play quantum software company fully dedicated to unlocking quantum’s commercial potential.

We’re rebuilding at a pivotal moment for the industry—bringing together a team that will help define how quantum delivers value in the real world, with the opportunity for meaningful ownership as we shape the commercial path forward.

About the role

We are seeking an experienced Lead Full-Stack Engineer to provide technical leadership for a small team building a knowledge graph and ontology related to quantum computing and design, along with an interactive web application that enables users to explore and engage with the underlying information. This is a hands-on leadership role that combines software architecture and development with technical direction, mentorship, and oversight of the team’s day-to-day engineering work.

You will lead the design and development of intuitive user interfaces, translate complex data structures into accessible and relevant user experiences, and guide the integration of AI-enabled application features. You will help establish technical standards, make key architectural decisions, review code, support other engineers, and ensure the team delivers secure, scalable, and maintainable software. Prior experience in quantum computing is not required.

This position offers a high level of ownership and is well suited to an engineer who is comfortable leading a small, focused team while remaining deeply involved in product development. You will be encouraged to experiment boldly with emerging technologies, evaluate new approaches, and apply them thoughtfully to unlock breakthrough performance and deliver outsized impact in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

This position is classified as exempt under applicable wage and hour laws and requires the regular exercise of independent judgment and discretion in leading the design, architecture, and development of software systems.

What you'll do

• Provide hands-on technical leadership for a small engineering team, setting technical direction and supporting the team’s execution and delivery.
• Design, architect, build, and continuously improve a modern, interactive web application, including selecting appropriate frameworks, system architecture, and technical approaches.
• Lead architectural and product-related technical decisions, exercising independent judgment when evaluating tools, technologies, tradeoffs, and design patterns.
• Establish engineering standards and best practices for software design, code quality, testing, documentation, security, and maintainability.
• Mentor and support other engineers through technical guidance, code reviews, collaborative problem-solving, and constructive feedback.
• Break complex initiatives into clear technical plans, coordinate engineering priorities, and help ensure projects are delivered on time and to a high standard.
• Independently analyze complex technical problems and develop scalable, reliable, and maintainable software solutions.
• Design and implement backend systems, data models, APIs, and integrations that support complex application functionality.
• Design and develop clean, intuitive user experiences for navigating and interacting with complex technical content.
• Integrate AI-enabled features such as intelligent search, recommendations, contextual assistance, and other emerging application capabilities.
• Collaborate with product, design, domain experts, and company leadership to translate business and user needs into practical technical solutions.
• Remain actively involved in software development while balancing individual contributions with leadership of the broader engineering effort.
• Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies, including AI-assisted development tools, when they can meaningfully improve productivity, quality, or application performance.

Qualifications

• At least 2 years of experience serving in a technical lead, engineering lead, or comparable software leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience providing technical direction, mentoring engineers, conducting code reviews, and supporting the delivery of complex software projects.
• Strong full-stack engineering fundamentals, with particular depth in backend architecture, data modeling, APIs, and scalable system design.
• Demonstrated experience designing, building, and maintaining production-quality, user-facing web applications.
• Experience making architectural decisions and evaluating technical tradeoffs across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and application integrations.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled application workflows, tools, or integrations.
• Strong understanding of UI/UX principles and product usability, with the ability to translate complex information into intuitive user experiences.
• Ability to work autonomously, manage competing priorities, and deliver results with minimal oversight.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to explain technical decisions to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• An efficiency-focused mindset and willingness to adopt new tools, including AI-assisted development tools, to improve engineering productivity.
• Ability and enthusiasm to learn unfamiliar technical domains as needed; prior quantum computing experience is not required.

Desired Programming Skills

• React — building responsive, high-quality user interfaces
• LLM API Integration
• Data Pipeline Design
• AI-assisted development (e.g., Claude Code)
• Supabase / PostgreSQL
• TypeScript / JavaScript
• API Design (REST)
• Cypher (Neo4j)
• Vector databases (e.g. Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, FAISS)  
• Python
• LaTeX
• Prompt Engineering

Preferred Experience

• Experience with data-intensive, graph-based, or visualization-heavy applications
• Evidence of shipped products, professional work, or substantial personal projects
• Strong communication skills and comfort articulating technical and design decisions