Employee Spotlight: Barry Coulling, Head of Manufacturing

Building the world’s most powerful quantum computers requires a diverse range of skills – from scientists and engineers, to software developers and manufacturing experts. At Oxford Ionics, we have a team of 80 specialists in these fields, all of whom are laser focused on delivering our record-breaking quantum computers to customers. 

Manufacturing is a crucial piece of this puzzle, and so today we’re excited to introduce you to Barry Coulling, Oxford Ionics’ Head of Manufacturing. Based in our Oxford HQ, Barry oversees the manufacture of our quantum computers, including the build and delivery of each system.

I started my career as a mechanical apprentice at Oxford Instruments, a leading manufacturing and research company also based here in Oxford. Over the four years I was an apprentice, I got my ONC and HNC qualification while working across several different departments doing practical, hands-on manufacturing work. After my apprenticeship, I settled into one of the test labs working on magnet builds, and worked my way up through the company first as a development technician, and then a senior development technician. 

A few years later, I helped create a new division of Oxford Instruments called Molecular Biotools where I led the assembly, testing, commissioning, and service engineering for the equipment we built. I was ultimately at Oxford Instruments for 13 years – over that time, I gained a tremendous amount of expertise across development and manufacturing, including decreasing our lead times and increasing build reliability. 

When I left Oxford Instruments, I knew I wanted to find something different and new to challenge myself. I joined the JET project at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy to own project management of the engineering and installation groups as we conducted upgrades to the project, which was an incredible experience. From there, I took a leap of faith to join Reaction Engines – which was then a tiny company building a first of type heat exchanger for Hypersonic flight. I initially joined as a technician on the team working on the SABRE engine proof of concept, and worked on manufacturing the heat exchanges, assembly integration and testing. 

Once we completed the proof of concept work on the SABRE engine, I worked with  Reaction Engine’s Applied Technologies division where we took the heat exchange technology that we developed and identified ways to leverage it across things like electric flight and green energy. Here I became Head of Manufacturing, and I oversaw a team of around 65 employees working across 4 departments on component build, first of type, low volume production and final assembly. In this role, I helped us achieve ISO 9001 and AS 9100 standards, became a Chartered Manager, and won the Colin Campbell Mitchell Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering. 

Once I left Reaction Engines, I had the opportunity to go back into fusion energy at Culham but was really impressed by the conversations I had with Oxford Ionics. Quantum computing has the power to shape a lot of industries, and I thought the combination of the people and technology at Oxford Ionics positioned them at the forefront of the sector. 

Personally, one of the things I was most excited for was the chance to help scale a rapidly-growing business again. Manufacturing an emerging technology at a start up is not always an easy journey – but it is unbelievably rewarding and you learn so much throughout the process. I was also really eager to dive into manufacturing a technology that I didn’t know much about. Through my previous work, I was familiar with some of the components like cryogenics, but for the most part it’s entirely different to what I have built before. 

It’s been a great learning experience – I come to work with PhDs who are some of the cleverest people in their fields. There’s a fantastic energy at Oxford Ionics: people want to achieve great things, everyone is ambitious, and everyone wants to make powerful quantum computing a reality. It’s truly an incredible team, and I am so grateful to work with everyone here. 

We start every day with a morning meeting, just to level-set on what we’re working on, what’s been going well, and where we need to improve. It’s important for our team to have this regular touchbase so that we can make sure we’re on track to hitting all of our deliverables, both for our internal deadlines and for our customers. These meetings help us understand what we need to action today, tomorrow, and within the next week.

Right now, we’re also rapidly hiring and expanding our team – so I spend a lot of time looking at our build plans over the next 12-18 months and interviewing potential candidates to ensure we have the right talent in place to help us achieve our goals. I also love developing and investing in my team, so I spend a lot of my time on skills development for the team. It’s a rapidly growing business, so it’s important that we grow and evolve our capabilities as we build out more and more quantum computers. 

One of the very first things I learned as an apprentice when I started working with people was empathy. It’s so crucial to develop these soft skills to ensure you can really bring out the best in the people around you – being able to understand a team member’s challenge and give them the tools to overcome it is one of the most valuable ingredients for success. Another skill I always come back to is the ability to take a step back and review the bigger picture. Taking a bird’s eye view helps to ensure I can guide the team through both the immediate projects and the long-term goals of the business. Finally, I’m really grateful that I get to use my technical skills every day. I’m not sitting at a desk for hours on end; I’m hands-on in the engineering which has been super fun for me.

My favourite project to date has definitely been all the work we have done on building Quartet, the quantum computer we are delivering to the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre. It was truly a team effort to build the system, getting ready to move it to the NQCC, and then installing it onsite. We took a ton of photos and videos of the installation, so stay tuned for more on this! 

In general, I love that the team is so supportive. Whenever we have a big project or customer delivery, the entire team comes together to build incredible technology for our customers. It’s been so nice to be in an environment where everyone is collaborative, dedicated, and driven by the same goal.  

I am currently in the middle of renovating my house, so I think you’ll likely find me doing a lot of DIY and building projects. Outside of that, I love motorcycling and spending time with my family and dog!