Craig Gidney
Research Scientist at Google
Santa Barbara, California, United States
Summary
🤩
RockstarCraig Gidney is a research scientist on Google's quantum computing team with 17 years of software engineering experience, blending production-grade engineering discipline with deep algorithmic work. Based in Santa Barbara, he has strong open-source credentials in prominent quantum projects like Cirq and Stim, where he refactored core data structures, improved performance, and strengthened test and serialization infrastructure. He pairs low-level optimization—memory-efficient Pauli-string representations and simulator measurement techniques—with practical front-end and mobile experience, having improved UI and audio/registration robustness in Signal iOS. His background shows a rare full-stack fluency across backend systems, simulators, and browser-based quantum tools like Quirk. Notably, he moves comfortably between shipping reliable tests and digging into quantum algorithm internals, making him effective at turning research ideas into production-ready code.
17 years of coding experience
Stackoverflow
17,991reputation
2.0mreached
276answers
140questions
iteration
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Github Skills (42)
algorithm10
unit-testing10
objective-c10
algorithms10
javascript10
ios10
c-language10
mobile-development10
python10
ui-design10
data-structure10
uid10
big-o10
front-end-development10
performance-optimization10
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
quantumlib/Stim
Dec 2020 - Jan 2023
A fast stabilizer circuit library.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Algorithm Implementer
Back-end Developer & Algorithm ImplementerContributions:18 releases, 259 reviews, 432 commits in 2 years 1 month
Contributions summary:Craig primarily focused on refactoring and optimizing the Stim library, a fast stabilizer circuit library. Their work involved refactoring core data structures such as Pauli strings and implementing a new class for more efficient memory utilization. The commits reflect a deep engagement with the underlying algorithms and data structures, indicating a focus on performance and efficiency. Additionally, the user implemented new measurement techniques within the simulator.
cppcircuitapicirqgoogle-quantum
quantumlib/Cirq
Jan 2018 - Jun 2021
A Python framework for creating, editing, and invoking Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) circuits.
Role in this project:Back-end & Test Engineer
Back-end & Test EngineerContributions:5 releases, 96 reviews, 562 commits in 3 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Craig focused on refactoring and testing within the Cirq codebase. The user's contributions included significant changes related to the internals of gates and operations. They were also involved in fixing bugs associated with tests and various serialization issues. They implemented tests for performance of the code.
pythonquantum-circuitsquantum-computingcircuitsquantum-algorithms
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