Mark Skilbeck
Senior Software Engineer at Rigetti Computing
England, United Kingdom
Summary
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Top SchoolMark Skilbeck is a Senior Software Engineer with 17 years of experience, currently focused on quantum compilation and simulation at Rigetti Computing. With a Master’s in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Nottingham, he brings a strong analytical foundation to building robust backend systems for quantum programming, including notable contributions to Rigetti's widely used pyQuil library (notably improving the Quil parser and test infrastructure). He combines deep research-oriented thinking with practical software engineering—refactoring core parsing logic, adding grammar features like circuitMeasure and circuitResetState, and fixing subtle bugs. Based in England, he pairs low-level technical craftsmanship (keyboard and Emacs customization) with collaborative open-source work, making complex quantum tooling more reliable and accessible.
17 years of coding experience
Master of Science - MS, Astrophysics, Master of Science - MS, Astrophysics at University of Nottingham
Stackoverflow
180reputation
4kreached
3answers
3questions
Github Skills (15)
quantum-computing10
parser10
parsing10
quil10
python10
parse10
unit-testing9
lambda6
mercurial6
common-lisp6
keybindings6
emacs6
org-mode6
dotemacs6
lisp6
Programming languages (21)
Github contributions (5)
rigetti/pyquil
Nov 2018 - Oct 2022
A Python library for quantum programming using Quil.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:15 releases, 118 reviews, 292 commits in 3 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Mark primarily contributed to the pyQuil library, focusing on improvements to the Quil parser and related testing infrastructure. Their work included fixing parsing errors, adding new features to the grammar such as `circuitMeasure` and `circuitResetState`, and refactoring function names. These changes enhance the functionality and robustness of the library's ability to parse and interpret Quil programs. Further contributions also included various bug fixes to examples and test-related code.
pythonforestquilquantum-computingquantum-programming
quil-lang/quil
Sep 2019 - Dec 2020
Specification of Quil: A Practical Quantum Instruction Set Architecture
Contributions:4 reviews, 11 commits, 3 PRs in 1 year 2 months
instruction-setforestquilquantum-computingquantum-programming
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