I Transitioned to Quantum Computing Later in My Career — Here’s What It Was Like
By Abhijit Mitra
Not everyone was able to begin their quantum computing journey fresh out of high school or college, working for a large quantum outfit or research lab. Some of us weren’t able to join the field until the middle of, or even late in, our careers.
Thirty years ago, I studied electronics, radio-physics engineering, and telecommunication at a prestigious engineering college in India. At that time, I was already passionate about quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, and neural networks. Four years after graduating, I came to the US hoping that I had landed in the center of cutting-edge computing — but, to my dismay, few people had heard of these computing advances in the town where I first worked, and the field was already amid an “AI winter,” a period of reduced interest. So, rather than whet my hunger for science and technology, I instead had to busy myself staying afloat in this new country, maintaining my visa and earning a living working mostly with accounting and supply chain-related software.
I lived this life until only a few years ago — I figured that, despite my physics training, I would eventually retire as an oil and gas accounting consultant. But then something totally unexpected happened from a very unlikely source: my children. I was living in Singapore with my family at the time working in enterprise resource planning (ERP). One day, I was casually telling my ten year old twin daughters about interesting subjects they might study and showing them videos on YouTube, and noticed the related videos. Though I hadn’t been paying much attention to AI up until that point, I came to realize that the advances that I was so excited about early in my career were now broadly-used consumer-facing products. Given the immense amount of interest, could I, now in my early forties, return to the field I was once so interested in? Or was it too late?
I started studying each evening and weekend, and in 2014 took an ERP job at IBM secretly hoping that I’d eventually be able to work in groundbreaking computing research, specifically AI at that point, full-time. But soon I understood that simply switching careers is easier said than done. Years passed, and despite telling everyone about my passion and career goals, nothing really changed, though I did have a kind boss who allowed me to attend AI conferences like NeurIPS, ICML, etc. In the meantime, I spent my personal time diving deep into reinforcement learning.
Things finally started changing for me in 2018. My daughter called me concerned after reading a perhaps factually inaccurate story about the potential impact of quantum computing on cryptocurrency. My curiosity perked up — I knew about quantum computing through popular science magazines like Scientific American but not with much depth. As I started to learn more, I realized that this was an even better field for me than AI, given my electronics and radio-physics background. I now switched my off time reading from artificial intelligence to quantum computing, taking quantum courses on YouTube and contacting members of the IBM Quantum team.
I was still losing hope — little in my career had changed, despite all of my extracurricular learning. But then one day in 2020, while listening to a conference presentation after a busy day at work, I heard that an IBM Quantum Challenge would begin the next week. I joined a team, dove in, and completed all of the challenge problems (you can read my post about that experience here).
Interest in quantum computing was exploding and positions were opening up, and I had spent much of my free time building up my quantum education, so I started actively interviewing for the positions on the team. I was accepted to my current role in mid-July of last year and joined the team a month later, as Principle Data Scientist for the Quantum Center of Competency of IBM’s Global Business Services.
Based on my own story, I think there’s plenty of room for other late-career folks without a Ph.D to join the field. Two things are at odds for us, of course: people with Quantum Ph.Ds are certainly favored by hiring managers in this field, and there’s a bias against us older folks, especially those of us without the experience of industry veterans or those of us who haven’t published a lot of papers.
For me, the key to overcoming these hurdles was passion and patience. My desire to enter these fields was extremely strong, and I had to stand up against one rejection after another. I treated these rejections as interview practice, and reminded myself that only one job would need to say yes for me to be successful in my endeavor.
I manifested my passion in two main ways. The first was relentless study, reading papers, articles, books, and watching YouTube videos. Every hour I spent studying has come in handy later down the line. The second was networking, building a group of peers who would be able to support me and provide me the right contacts — every contact I met and every meeting I attended was important to me.
I also needed to toss aside my pride. I spend decades rising into a prestigious position with job security — a role I’ve foregone to become a newcomer at the bottom of the ladder with a steep learning curve ahead of me. This decision required a lot of personal and professional sacrifice. I had to treat learning as a second job, working tirelessly on nights and weekends, often having to decide between my studies and spending valuable time with my family. At times, the extra work even cut into my past job. I’m hoping that, now that I’ve achieved one of my main goals, I can start phasing down this extracurricular work in the next few months.
But, at least in my case, it was worth it. It has been so exciting to learn something new, and I feel like I may one day be able to publish my research and gain eminence in this community I’ve long been excited about. After overcoming the initial hump, I can now work with folks much younger than me, as well as the experimenters, academics, and businesspeople that I once idolized, on the technology of my dreams.
I sometimes ask myself, and you should ask yourself, whether the change is worth it. Plenty of us late-career folks are used to making these kinds of tough decisions — and in many cases, making decisions based on what’s safe, rather than on what we desire.These decisions come with the risk of pain, financial insecurity, sacrifice, and even embarrassment. But for me, the calling was so strong that it was impossible for me to continue my past work. If that describes you too, then take the plunge. Luck favors the brave, after all, and I think that if you follow a similar path to mine, then you’ll be able to greatly increase your chances for success.
