I’ve always though that life’s milestones are worth writing down. I enjoy reading the thoughts and observations of others. So… I’ve made an interesting decision that I want to share. I’m joining IonQ to head up their Field Engineering team, and I want to share why.

For those of you that know me — it’s an interesting story.

WARNING dear reader, this is a classic Chad story that does a “bottoms up” long route to the punch-line, but that’s how my mind works and gives a more real, more complete picture.

I’ve broken it into 3 parts. Read on friends, and may it be interesting to you!

PART I: A story you may know

I’ve always been a curious, passionate technologist and engineer at my core. For me, that passion has always been focused on how that innovation creates impact. I found I was less excited about abstract innovation (though I’m furiously curious about how everything works).

My inner drive is about that transition from early stages in laboratories to scale, solutions, outcomes. Most importantly, I’m fascinated by the building the “machine”, the “flywheel” that takes the innovation to the world.

This translates into the team of people that are right in the middle of the customer-product feedback loop that must be always be tight — and never more so than in the early days where rapid iteration is clutch.

My career has been a little heterodox — ranging from networking, software startups in the early days, then stumbling into technology giants through acquisition. In EMC, then Dell Technologies, then Pivotal and VMware I learned how to build teams, how to operate globally and at scale, and how to build cultures to last — which means they are dynamic, flex, evolve. Organizations have a life-cycle that echoes a human life — they are born, grow, mature, die — and give birth to new things.

I’m so thankful for that experience and all the lifelong friends I’ve made along the way. I learnt a ton about navigating complex organizations and building bridges.

I learned how to make things work in a highly acquisitive org, how to navigate mergers and complex matrix orgs, how to break down conflict. This means constantly working to cure “acquisition-itis”. In the end all that stuff is noise that needs to go away so the team can stay focused on what matters: innovating fast and making magic happen at customers and delighting them.

That is never easy (and is all about people) but the side effect of doing that well is revenue, profit and growth — and a TON OF FUN.

It turned out I was pretty good at that, and the journey was awesome.

Frankly, I thought my next years would be about giving back that experience to smaller companies and startups, and different personal balance. For the last 4 years I found several companies where I loved the people and mission and could bring that experience to lend them a hand, advising and consulting the teams, leaders across GTM and product/engineering — all while being a lumberjack and building my woodworking skills.

I was finding a new form of joy working with my hands, and spending precious time with my inspirational daughters, amazing wife, and delightful family.

That part was also awesome, and I was happy and satisfied… Then, something happened.

To understand this next part — you need to know something about me that isn’t as visible publicly.

PART II: The Secret Life of Chad Sakac

I’m an Electrical Engineer / CompSci human by academic training, and that first part gives a hint, but let me spell it out.

I get a deep personal sense of fulfillment and connection with the universe we live in through theoretical physics. This ranges from the smallest quantum theory and trying to visualize probability waves; through the high energy theoretical physics and the standard model; the largest of the large we can imagine in the universe of cosmology.

Being curious and imaginative and applying it to these domains creates an “echo”, a “connection” for me that is deeply personal. I suppose a feeling of metaphysical connection to deeper purpose, meaning.

That’s always been a side part of me.

Growing up, my father imparted this curiosity and we would talk as a family about these topics over dinner.

As a teenager, I got a copy of Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces and fell in love with the ideas (a great xmas gift idea if you’re looking for one!).

I ALSO fell in love with him as an incredible “Sales Engineer”, a teacher. His legend was as much (more?) about taking his own curiosity, passion and ideas on complex/obscure/deeply technical topics and communicating them to others, humanizing them, creating stories and narrative arcs, and thus creating in a larger way impact. My bookshelf is PACKED with books on these topics, and to this day, between my father and I we exchange books at Christmas to read and be inspired for the next year to come.

In University, I loved the strangest and most wonderful parts of electrical engineering (which are essential): fields and the beauty of Maxwell’s equations; the incredible problems you make simple through a form of magic using imaginary numbers, the complex plane and more generally transforms of every kind; how the strangeness of quantum mechanics is pointing at a deeper fundamental nature of reality and power N-P junctions, then transistors, and then the modern world — all with electrons teleporting across gaps because they are really probability waves.

This last one (strangeness of quantum mechanics) is important not JUST in abstract ways, but practical ways we use every day in semiconductors, lasers, in LEDs, in clocks — in everything modern life depends on.

It’s amazing to me that people walk around living their lives and don’t even think about these things.

My undergrad thesis in 1997 was a freespace communication system using some of the earliest high power (but still affordable) semiconductor laser diodes and the associated control and aiming armatures (I cooked more than one of those lasers in the process)

Net: I’m a weirdo :-)

Even now, I’m constantly trying to keep up with what is happening in these domains… and when I need humility and perspective, I go out on a dark night to my home-built observatory and look at deep space and imagine the large and the small.

All of this was a side passion, and “Applied Quantum Mechanics” is something that I have been following for decades.

I’m intentionally not just calling it “Quantum Computing” — because the trials, tribulations, the steps forward and backwards that are inexorably working towards scaling practical Quantum Computing (and the over-the-top hype machine) often “wash out” other areas that are as impactful:

• Using applied quantum mechanics for networking/security (QKD as one example of many) are already well into moving into early stages of “maturity” IMHO. I think this alone could be a trillion dollar ecosystem — and that’s before the implications of being able to network quantum computers with things that can maintain superposition and entanglement properties.

• Applied quantum mechanics in clocks has been with us since the 60’s for crying out loud — and you don’t think about it, but underpins how you get an UBER or find a local restaurant. This domain has a TON going on, powering next generation GPS. Remember that clocks are essential to EVERYTHING. I think next gen clocks, GPS 2.0 and other applications could be a trillion dollar ecosystem.
• Quantum accelerometers/gravimeters and magnetic sensors leveraging quantum spin properties are in early stages relatively but let’s be clear — they are in real world uses all over the place, and moving really fast. I think this too could be a trillion dollar ecosystem.
• Connecting quantum applied systems of all kinds in space, air, ground and sea is happening now. The space part of this alone could be yet another trillion dollar ecosystem.

When people talk about “quantum isn’t here yet”, they are blind — it’s all around them right now.

Now, let’s talk about my PoV re Quantum Computing. On that topic, yup there is a ton of misinformation (some of course from vendors). That has been perpetuating the wrong idea — that somehow “quantum computers are right around the corner that will completely re-shape the computing market and make classical computers obsolete. The coverage like this is really annoying because in glossing over things they often totally miss the point.

RIGHT NOW, there are sets of problems that quantum computers even in their nascent, fragile, low-qubit counts where some advantage exists. Those use cases are narrow, but real. To understand why is waaay beyond the scope of this post, and frankly a domain where my own knowledge I would describe as neophyte — but a “neophyte with a long, fairly deep understanding of algorithmic complexity, quantum mechanics, and unique vertical business problems” (which is itself a weird mix).

People get into bar fights about different approaches (superconducting, trapped ions, photonics) and a ridiculous amount of ink (and billions of capital) are flowing around these ideas .

I don’t want to get into bar fights, but do encourage healthy debate and discussion. Frankly, in this space, innovation will come fast and furious and no single player is the story — the story is the ecosystem as a whole.

Now, I have a personal opinion. Completely independently from this IonQ decision I’m making, I’ve always thought that trapped ion approaches had the most legs, the most clear path to scaling, commercialization and broadest market impact for quantum computing.

Why?

With quantum computing, it’s never been about gate times. It’s about what algorithms you can run, what problems you can solve, and then time to solution. In turn time to solution is about whether you can have useful qubits and how many and what topologies. That in turn is about fidelity, coherence times, error rates, connectivity. These (and other parameters) really determine what algorithms are possible -> then practical -> then have a quantum advantage.

After that, there’s the topic of the software part of the stack and its completeness — another domain that is just as important as the hardware. We’re doing work there, but the ecosystem and OSS contribution are clutch — with a ton of heavy lifting from other leaders in this domain (independently of our hardware disagreements).

Aside — people who understand this world are rapidly being in very, very high demand. It’s the same pattern as with Generative AI — which languished for years in the backwater pools of academia for decades in lightly attended Neural Networking CS classes and conferences. That is until it exploded in value when a critical threshold of capability and dependencies were solved.

The issue with trapped ion systems has always struck me the scaling the lasers for manipulating spin has been the central scaling (and stability) issue — so there are real problems to solve, but I feel strongly that baryonic matter that you can control well, and do so with non-esoteric semiconductor approaches was the place where things could really build.

It’s still early days, but things are starting to accelerate…

In the last few weeks, I’ve become convinced that this is on the verge of changing fast, and that IonQ has a real shot to lead that charge and where I want to be — not just because of compute (though that is clutch) — but Applied Quantum Solutions generally.

I’ve been following IonQ since the SPAC and there are many human personal connections that have existed for years and date back to EMC.

Even before then, the founders were building some of the most central foundations of functional quantum computers. It was 30 years ago that the journey really got started in an atomic clock lab in Boulder Colorado (this is a fascinating story in it’s own right worth reading here)

Over the last year things have been changing fast. There’s a new furious intensity at IonQ. There have been many acquisitions that are about great IP, amazing people and teams, real solutions. There is all-sorts of cross leverage that already exists, and more will come.

I got an outreach from the team and they were persuasive. But that’s not how I think and how I build my own understanding that underpins my decision-making. So, I hit the road.

I’ve spent the last few weeks up to my elbows — in tech, and seeking to deeply understand where we are and where we are going, and the people working on each part:

• In Maryland where the journey started and continues.
• In Stockholm where I talked to several customers to deeply understand what they are doing.
• In Oxford with the Oxford Ionics team to really understand what’s next for the computing platform and how they will bring their incredible energy, innovation, excellence and build on the amazing skills, tech, people and experience in Maryland/Seattle for the next chapter of the compute journey.
• Talking with the great team that works on quantum algorithms, applications, and the compute software stack.
• This last week I was in the Bay Area at Q2B with customers, and in Pleasanton with the amazing Vector Atomics team to deeply understand their technology, journey, culture and platform.
• I’ll be spending time with the ID Quantique and broader IonQ networking team and the amazing Capella Space team next.

After all that, I came to a simple conclusion:

This is an awesome team that can change the world, can have a huge impact, and I think I can help.

They are already having a real-world impact, ramping revenues. IonQ is really the world’s first Quantum Solution company with strong capabilities in multiple areas. I’ve concluded they are on the verge of a breakthrough on compute — though of course the proof is in the pudding. There’s the normal amount of acquisition-itis, but that’s a familiar and navigable (hard, but necessary) set of hills to climb hand-in-hand.

That’s worth jumping out of my “sabbatical” to do — pick up the tools, pack my bag and hit the road with only gear in my gearbox: full tilt.

The fact that I can do it alongside a person who I’ve worked with, trust and is a solid human in all ways (Scott Millard who recently joined as Chief Business Officer) is a huge bonus even as I learnt to love all the new colleagues I work with and fight in trenches and foxholes side-by-side.

There’s a TON of work to do.

PART III: What’s next

Effective immediately will bring my weird blend of technologist/executive/business/people and lead the charge for the IonQ Field Engineering team.

This will build on the existing teams, work with the specialists that exist in each of the domains.

There will be a need to grow an absolutely epic group of people, one that takes incredible pride in excellence, and who always has a north star about customer, impact, applied, solution. This isn’t for prima donnas that want to prove they are the smartest in the room — this is about having a lasting impact.

There are NO single humans that can know/understand this whole fast moving domain (and if you think you are that unicorn, boy do I want to talk to you — prove me wrong). There are great people at IonQ that do this, but it’s nascent — and I intend to hit the gas.

So far what I know is that I will need a blend of:

• “Quantum Field Specialists”. These are people that don’t need to be quantum PhDs, but they need to be very smart, extremely curious because they will need to drink from a firehose. They need to build expertise and adapt FAST. They need to be egoless, because while they need to be confident, they also need to be fearless to say “I don’t know, but I know how to find out and bring in deep experitise in that domain”. This type of person is the “customer facing technologist” mold. They need to understand and love their customers, and respect the commercial reality — this isn’t a game, it’s about outcomes delivered. Some of these folks will work in territories/verticals. They will ALL be evangelists, but some will be evangelists for a living — overwhelming community contribution and value. Others will focus on specific customers, engagements and campaigns.
• “Quantum Field Application Engineers”. IonQ has an absolutely amazing team that knows quantum algorithms, applications. They are part of the product team and an essential one. They have built software stack and compilers at IonQ and at other companies. These are PhDs who have already built muscles about delivering real software, real value. Honestly every conversation I have with these people are delight. We cannot hire them fast enough. I believe that for SOME of type of people that would join that kind of team at IonQ or our competitors, there will be SOME that will say: that’s what I love, it’s my jam, but I want to be closer to the business and the customer. As someone that made a turn towards the field and customers early in my career, I can vouch for this personally. It’s an equally fulfilling but different path. It’s a slightly different wiring. Being closer to business, customers, and revenue has its own value, feedback loop and power. Together with the awesome IonQ application engineering team — this will be a “one team” philosophy. Brothers and sisters — some on the product side, some on the field side.
• “Quantum Field Scientists”. In some of the verticals where Quantum Computing is already having early impact, sometimes there are really, really vertical expertise that is valuable (think of FinServ/FinTech, Chemistry/Materials, BioTech/Lifesciences), and knowledge that is SUPER deep about these domains, their unique business problems is valuable.

This team will work hand in hand with the IonQ specialists in each of our businesses — Networking/Security, Sensing, Space — those people know their business deeper, further, faster than anyone anywhere and winning is a team sport.

If you read this and are as excited as I am, and you think you might be a fit for those 3 profiles, let’s talk ASAP.

For now — I’m heads down, building, engaging, connecting. I’m moving through the “I don’t know where the bathroom is” phase — but I learn fast, I’m fearless in saying “I don’t know” and am a sponge.

Happy Holidays all, Merry Christmas, and 2026 is going to be a very, VERY exciting year!