Product management in the age of quantum - navigating new frontiers
On June 7, 2024, the United Nations proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology in recognition of 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics.
Over the last decade, progress in the quantum technology sector has seen exponential growth. The quantum race has received significant investment from venture capital, public funding, and some of the world’s biggest players—IBM, Amazon, Google, Microsoft—along with a growing number of startups. In fact, over $5 billion has been invested into quantum technologies, reinforcing that we’re on the cusp of something transformative.
This emerging field holds the allure of revolutionizing industries, from pharmaceuticals to cryptography to supply-chain logistics. Industry leaders, analysts, and publications such as McKinsey, Forbes, and Deloitte regularly position quantum technology as one of the top sectors to watch. However, as the interest around quantum builds, so too does the noise—predictions of quantum computing being “bigger than fire” or the next “humanity-changing revolution” (Fort Worth Report) can often obscure the path forward and overlook the challenges and limitations that must be overcome. At the same time, many industry cynics (see Jensen Huang/NVIDIA) believe that the road to commercialization is long and dark, while others have recently countered (see Hartmut Neven/Google and Bill Gates/Founder, former Microsoft CEO).
In this uncertain and nascent landscape, a question remains: Is product management critical in this still-emerging field?
A perspective on why product management matters in deep tech
The French pilot and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
There’s no doubt that navigating the complexities of a deep tech field like quantum computing requires vision, dedication, and staying the course amidst a sea of uncertainty. Overcoming this sea is much like Crossing the Chasm of the technology adoption life cycle. It demands a commitment to a future destination, despite the risks and unknowns that lie ahead so that there’s enough momentum built to transition from the early adopters (enthusiasts, visionaries) to the mainstream market.
In an innovative, deep-tech field like quantum, it’s easy to get swept away in the science and default to research and discovery initiatives as the roadmap. While there’s nothing wrong with this approach, they will need to find a path to commercialization eventually in order for companies to thrive. This is where product management can be most helpful.
A Product Manager (PM) is responsible for defining the vision, strategy, and execution of a product that delivers the most value to its users and customers. But in deep tech and emerging domains, customers don't always know what they want (nor do many even exist yet), organizations don't always know what they need to build, and roadmaps can skew toward research-led over customer-inspired. A PM sits at the intersection of business, technology, design, and customer needs and experience, ensuring that a product that’s built and delivered anticipates customer needs while aligning with company goals. A PM’s role, especially in the midst of uncertainty, is to answer the following questions:
- What problem are we solving? Do we truly understand the customer persona and their pain points? Are these problems significant and common enough to warrant a scalable product? We anchor all decisions on validated customer feedback and market insights.
- Can we build it? Do we have the in-house expertise and resources to build this solution? We start by evaluating what we know and what we don’t know, focusing on our core competencies.
- Should we build it? Is there an opportunity in the market? Are we the right company to take on this project, or should we partner with others? In an ecosystem with increasingly more players, collaborating with the right strategic partners is key.
These questions are especially challenging to answer when you’re at the cutting edge with minimal data and market validation. Product teams in established markets and industries have vast amounts of data and well-defined markets to guide their strategy. In contrast, quantum technology presents a much less predictable environment. Customer signals are scarce, there are so many unknown unknowns, and you’re making big bets on technology direction and product roadmaps.
Developing a vision, strategy, and roadmap for completely novel technologies requires a combination of understanding the technology landscape, observing previous trends in tech adoption, and making assumptions using strong intuition. There is no product playbook in deep tech.
Why product managers should dive into the deep (tech) end
You’re probably thoroughly convinced about working in deep tech now! Jokes aside, the following presents a case.
According to the Boston Consulting Group, we are at the cusp of witnessing commercial solutions in the market for quantum computing (to use computing as an example). Commercially viable and utility-scale use cases are emerging soon (Figure 2). While many industry and industry-adjacent voices promote that larger and more powerful machines, driven by notions of AI or QEC (quantum error correction), will accelerate the progress of quantum technology, I’d advocate that it's the blood and sweat of solid product sense and execution prowess that will be key catalysts. In his 1996 work Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, MIT professor James Utterback defined phases of emerging technologies to enter and gain traction in the marketplace. Utterback describes the innovation phases that these breakthroughs progress through, from scientific (or technological) innovation to product innovation to process innovation to business innovation (Figure 3). When Utterback’s innovation phases are overlaid onto the evolution of quantum progress, it suggest we are entering a phase where product innovation will be a key competitive advantage that will set apart quantum technology industry leaders (Figure 4).
Even if the timing for commercial viability and product innovation do take hold, according to these cycles and predictions, there still remains massive challenges and uncertainty, requiring big bets and bold risk-taking. Why should product managers (or anyone, really) enter deep tech fields like quantum?
Here are a few key reasons:
1. Impact: Quantum's strategic role
Quantum technology is not just another tech trend—it’s a matter of strategic importance on a global scale. Nations worldwide are investing heavily to secure leadership in this space, recognizing that the development of quantum technologies has far-reaching implications for national security, economic power, and innovation. Through initiatives like the National Quantum Initiative, the U.S. government has committed to advancing quantum technologies for economic and national security purposes. Likewise, international alliances like AUKUS emphasize the importance of quantum technologies for geopolitical cooperation.
In such an environment, product management isn’t just about creating new products; it’s about shaping the future of a technology, and its adoption, with many geopolitical considerations.
2. Opportunity: The greenfield of quantum
As an example, while the quantum computing market alone is poised to reach $850 billion of economic value by 2040, the opportunities are vast. As McKinsey points out, industries are on the brink of realizing near-term commercial uses of quantum, with early applications already emerging in sectors like pharmaceuticals and automotive.
As a product manager in deep tech, you have the privilege of being at the frontier, creating new solutions, and uncovering and shaping use cases that don’t yet exist. The chance to develop breakthrough products in these exciting areas is what draws the brightest minds to the field. There’s something uniquely thrilling about working in a space where the market and user base are still emerging. From quantum computing in logistics and finance to quantum sensing in natural resource monitoring, the possibilities are vast.
3. Growth: Pushing beyond boundaries
In his book The Hard Things About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz notes that there’s no blueprint for building a high-tech company—only resilience, adaptability, and hard-earned experience. Working in deep tech fields like quantum is undoubtedly difficult. The risks are high, the rewards are uncertain, and every step is an exercise in navigating complexity. But this also fosters personal, professional, and organizational growth. For product managers, there is no better space to test and expand your capabilities.
What are we building?
Product management in emerging fields differs drastically from more mature markets. Product managers can lean on existing customer journeys, behavioral patterns, and known problems in established markets to craft solutions. In deep tech, particularly quantum, the market is often in its infancy. Users and customers may not even realize they have a problem or a vast opportunity to seize yet, and the mass-market potential is still forming.
At Q-CTRL, we are focused on building software that enables quantum technology. That translates to quantum infrastructure software for quantum computing, the “picks and shovels" that provide infrastructure and applications as a service, to deliver tooling to transform “bare-metal” quantum processors into useful computational tools compatible with enterprise cloud architectures.
By analogy with classical infrastructure software, such as VMWare’s hypervisors, Q-CTRL's approach to quantum infrastructure software virtualizes quantum computer hardware and enables seamless integration with a variety of production and cloud-ready quantum processing unit (QPU) modalities. Q-CTRL has been pioneering the infrastructure software category for the growing quantum industry.
For example, this approach is demonstrated through our integration with IBM, both support through Fire Opal and availability as Qiskit Functions, along with maintaining our hardware-agnostic platform through integrations with other providers and modalities. For quantum sensing, we design and build software-ruggedized sensor technology that makes our sensing capabilities deployable and operationally successful in the field.
In quantum computing and sensing, the landscape is unpredictable. As product managers, we have to build not just for today’s needs, but also anticipate tomorrow’s opportunities.
How do we build it?
In traditional product management, roles are often clearly defined, with distinct responsibilities for each member of the team. However, in the deep tech landscape, product management is often like playing in a jazz band rather than an orchestra.
Just as jazz bands require spontaneity, agility, and collaboration to create something greater than the sum of their parts, building quantum products demands flexibility and rapid adaptation. At Q-CTRL, while we reference existing development frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, RICE Scoring, KANO models, design thinking, etc (you name it), we also embrace that deep tech, quantum product management requires us to blend and adapt these frameworks to our unique context and technical complexity. There is no textbook approach that completely applies; in fact, we are often creating the playbooks!
Drawing from our company’s values, and a culture of adaptability and versatility, we’ve developed Product Principles that anchor how we operate and execute as a team (we may have a separate series of blog posts on each of these principles):
- Define the destination: We envision the end-to-end user experience and set clear goals for where we want to go, while embracing the need to adapt as new challenges arise.
- Build upon the core: We focus on our core competencies but remain open to external partnerships to avoid reinventing the wheel.
- Deliver progress: Each product iteration must bring measurable improvements—whether that’s in performance, user experience, or resource efficiency.
- Make the complex simple: We work to abstract complexity, ensuring our products are as user-friendly as they are powerful.
- Seek ideas from everywhere: Great ideas can come from anywhere—across departments, from customers, even from competitors.
Join us in shaping the quantum future
Product management in deep tech requires a mindset of adaptability, a commitment to collaboration, and a passion for creating something that hasn’t existed before. In this year of quantum, and in the midst of hype of other themes like AI and Quantum and QEC, I’d even argue that product-centric innovation is one of the key ingredients that will help accelerate our path to quantum advantage and business utility. We’re excited to be part of this journey—navigating the uncertainty, seizing the opportunity, and building the quantum future.
If you're ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities of a pioneering field, we invite you to explore the many roles we’re hiring for and join us! Together, we can make quantum technology useful.
