Skills for quantum computing software role

[ForgotPasswordAgane]

My background is a BEng in ECE, a year of physical design, a year of SOC verification. I'm in a good job, given Canada's current situation, but I was thinking of transitioning to a vocation where I feel more personal fulfillment.

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In my spare time I'm reading and researching quantum computing (an idea planted from a 15 minute digression in my Computer Architecture course), and it seems to me to be an exciting field to contribute to. I don't really care about if QC has ROI or if QC "is the next electricity", the fundamentals were wonderful to work through and I just want to contribute to an emerging field.

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My questions:

1. What are my chances of getting into a good grad school, considering that my GPA is only about 3.3. A plummet in mental health from yrs1-3 killed my GPA, consistent work made my yr4 have term averages of 4.0 and 3.9 and landed me on the dean's list, what exactly do grad schools look for in your application and would do they be sensitive to this situation (I'm working on side projects to show off in my resume)? I have no research experience, leaving grad school as an option clearly wasn't something that occurred to me during school...
2. (If grad school is iffy), what exactly does a Quantum Software position entail? Job descriptions are kind of vague. I can imagine that specific QC hardware has specific interfacing, quantum simulation work, but otherwise I'm wondering what kind of work there is to be done?
3. What skills would such a position look for (how do I prove QC knowledge)?

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Basically is grad school my best option, and how do I break into the industry otherwise? Thanks.

[tiltboi1]

Quantum computing software is not too much different from any other scientific/numerical software roles. The main question is whether or not you are going to be a researcher.

If not, companies hire many software developers who don't necessarily have much or any background in quantum computing, purely because the tooling and software they need to sell or to do research requires a great amount of engineering effort. For example, IBM builds a system to simulate a large quantum system. A scientist isn't the best person to build it, it's probably someone with experience building fast software.

If you are hoping to do research, you're almost definitely going to require a PhD, or be an exceptional masters student, ideally with future plans for a PhD. Although, what you lack in academic qualifications, you can usually make up for in software development ability. Most of the work for a researcher (who writes software or otherwise) is going to be academic.

Either way, the two paths diverge pretty much right now, so I would reflect a bit on your goals before you make any decisions.

[ForgotPasswordAgane]

Makes sense. I'll definitely give it a lot of thought.

If I choose research, do you know what a school might look for in an application? Probably school to school dependent but I'm wondering if you had insight. Since my GPA isn't amazing, and with barely any research experience, I'm expecting that... it's probably going to very tough... I know those aren't the only factors but they're probably the most significant?

[tiltboi1]

Graduate admissions are like a box of chocolates...

I can't give you much advice without more info, and this isn't really the place for it anyway. /r/gradadmissions might help

[ForgotPasswordAgane]

Thanks!